


The Leaving of Caleb Widogast

by Catzgirl



Series: The Grunge Hobo Learns to Trust [4]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Established Relationship, Graphic Description, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Kidnapping, M/M, Self-Sacrifice, any of yall want that, the kids are not alright, trope?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-05
Updated: 2018-03-19
Packaged: 2019-03-27 05:24:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 10
Words: 31,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13874076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catzgirl/pseuds/Catzgirl
Summary: When there's no way out, Caleb makes his own.





	1. A Ceding of Self

**Author's Note:**

> Hope yall are here for the angst because that's all I've got for you.  
> I wrote this instead of an essay because I hate myself!

Who was on watch? 

Does it matter? 

An alarm bell goes off in his head, jolting him from sleep, and he's raising his voice as he goes, reaching for Nott to hide her behind him before his eyes are even open. 

"Wake up, wake up!" He's shouting, "Someone is here!" Nott is instantly awake, her short sword hissing as she draws it, yellow eyes fierce in the moon and firelight as she clutches close to Caleb. On his other side, Fjord rolls out of his bedroll in one lithe movement, falchion appearing with a small flash of light and seawater, and he prowls towards the perimeter of camp without comment. 

It's not the first time that Caleb has woken them in the night after his silver thread has been crossed. He's woken them to find small animals, felled tree branches, all sorts of motely reasons why a bit of thread strung up around camp would be violated. No one ever reprimands him, though; when traveling like this 'safe rather than sorry' is practically their mantra. 

So other voices call out, asking Fjord to verify Caleb's concerns, but all of them are armed and on their feet and ready to meet whatever is coming for them. The Mighty Nein are in rare form for once, all of them well fed and rested, setting out on a new adventuring gig and prepared for the hardships of the road. 

It does them absolutely no good. 

A small raiding party, large enough to pillage a village, descends out of the forest around them once they realize the element of surprise is lost. Human and just as well armed and armored as the Mighty Nein, just as well trained. Fjord has to fallback so as not to be overtaken, takes up a flank with Jester to guard her side as she summons her ethereal lollipop. 

Somewhere to his right, Molly is snarling in Infernal, a steady stream of language that leaves their foes paler for the effort, more prone to starts of sudden panic. Nott scampers from his side to slash and stab at random, utilizing her small size as a weapon, staying clear of danger as much as she can. 

Beau and Yasha are yelling, somewhere, no doubt pummeling their enemies into submission. Beau loves to show off in front of their wild barbarian, and Yasha seems to love being shown off for. 

Caleb hates hurting people. It brings back—memories. Of the distasteful sort. But his hands are glowing before their attackers have even reached the light of their campfire, spells weaving and twisting between his fingers on instinct, and he looses his first bolt of energy at the nearest thug as soon as their eyes meet. 

He owes them that. If he's going to snuff out their lives and make them hurt, he owes them at least that one dignity. 

(They're trying to kill him, too, he realizes. They wouldn't give him the same respect, he knows. 

But what separates him from the other monsters is that at least he knows what he is.) 

They are a small adventuring group and they've fallen in the path of a raiding party and even if the skill level falls in their favor, the numbers are undeniable. 

Caleb beats a hasty retreat closer to the campfire, feels better with it at his back, turns in a steady circle so that he can disperse his spells amongst his comrades. He covers Jester as she dashes from one side of the camp to the other, a ghostly bell tolling in her wake and leaving her pursuers stunned as she positions herself with her back to their cart. Beau goes running past in a sprint, tackles one raider bodily and using his body as leverage for a second leap that sends her fist directly into an enemy nose, shattering part of his face. She prowls past Jester, past Fjord, to where Nott is hunkered under a small camp table, flips it and uses it as to bludgeon the men surrounding the goblin. Appreciative as he is, Caleb has no spare time to give thanks as he gestures to Yasha with a spell on his tongue, takes a small amount of pride when she throws a rare smile over her shoulder for him as her very form blurrs and contorts so that the multiple men she's fighting see only a smear of movement where her greatsword swings. 

They are in rare form, all of them. It does them absolutely no good. 

Mollymauk is the first to go down—a groan that has Caleb's attention snapping to the way the Tiefling lists to the side, clutching a wound over his abdomen, and drops to his knees. The man before him pulls his sword, readies to swing it, finds himself falling back as Caleb advances with his diamond spitting a steady stream of acid. Molly is pale under the lavender of his skin, his chest is leaking from several smaller, self-afflicted cuts, and he manages only a gasped "thanks" before promptly falling unconscious. Caleb doesn't even have the time to check his companion more thoroughly, to attempt to help him in anyway, just holds his ground over Molly's body and lets fire, fast and familiar even as fear leaks into him, pour from his hands. The fire is as near to his heart as Fjord is, and takes almost no effort, barely half a thought as he roasts a raider that's approaching them, turns and sends a fireball careening sixty feet away to knock one of Jester's foes off balance, shifts and creates a protective swirl of flames around Nott as she makes a dash back towards him while Beau distracts her would-be attackers. 

He hates the fire that runs in his veins, but he can't deny its usefulness. 

"Caleb, I don't think we're doing such a great job here!" Nott's voice is a yelp, and though she appears only marginally wounded, she's right. They're already down Mollymauk, none of them unscathed, and though they've cut down a fair few the raider presence is still overwhelming. 

In his peripheral he sees Beau go flying onto her back from a blow, he lops a spear of fire into her attacker's chest, keeps one eye on her as she flexes her core and backflips into a defensive stance, tries to split his attention between her and the group that are flanking Fjord. The warlock and his hexblade have clearly been recognized as one of the greater threats, but he holds steady against the onslaught. He catches a pair of blades with his falchion, and Caleb sees rather than hear the grunt it pulls from him. A twitch of Caleb's fingers has Frumpkin leaping between them with the sort of grating scream that only cats can manage. His dear familiar slinks off without harm, but the raiders stumble with the interruption and Fjord regains his offensive edge, presses the advantage. 

They can't keep this up. He knows it, knows that he should grab Nott and run, but cannot bring himself to actually do it. These lunatics are his friends, his family, and he can't abandon them when there's tricks still left up his sleeve. 

"Go to Jester," he says instead, because he feels best when his favorite goblin keeps the cleric's company, knows that Jester will look out for Nott while he figures out their strategy. Nott gives a nod of her little head, her toothy mouth flashing in something altogether too worried to be called a smile as she scampers back across the camp ground. 

Caleb shucks his coat, lays it over Molly—is obscuring his downed companion from view enough to keep him safe? He doesn't know but it's all he's got—sends a line of flashing and dancing orbs of light wildly scattering just for the distraction of it, just to give any of his companions even a small additional chance, and tries to get to Fjord. 

The half-orc's back is to him, and he's too far to hear Fjord's spew of battle cries, the cadence of his drawl turned into something sharp and ugly whenever his falchion meets steel—not the same weapon as Infernal can be but still plenty intimidating—but not so far that he can't see how the men arrayed against him cringe and swear in return. And even though they're not doing great (if he's honest, Nott has understated their situation, they're doing pretty fucking poorly,) he still feels his heart skip a beat at the way sweat trails down the back of Fjord's neck, at the strain of the muscles in Fjord's back, at the singular intensity and focus Fjord wields in battle as his points one green finger at an opposer until a crown of jagged thorns materializes on his brow. The maddened man turns on his brothers in arms with a shriek, cuts down one and wounds another before he is cut down in return. 

Caleb's heart is a lodestone, and it pulls him to the steel of Fjord's spine, which bends only at Caleb's request. 

(And that's not a rare thing at all. There's a mark on Caleb's neck that is the exact shape of Fjord's teeth that the half-orc had fussed over for a week, embarrassed and sorry that his orcish instincts had so seized him in a moment of passion that he had  _marked_ Caleb _. Marked_  Caleb as  _his_ , and then worried for weeks that Caleb would change his mind about keeping it. 

Those had been good weeks. Caleb would like to say that he was above milking it for the gentle, worshipful nights that Fjord had catered to him in recompense, but he's only human. Fjord bends his iron will, his steel spine, on request for the human bearing his mark and does it without complaint. 

Does he only imagine it throbbing, now? Or is that only his own heart rate speeding at the sight of the man that made it?) 

To be clear, none of this distracts Caleb from the matter at hand: Admiring Fjord is second-hand nature, at this point. The vast majority of his focus is on putting one foot in front of the other, pausing to dodge a raider or a wayward crossbow bolt, to chuck bits of fire around the area where appropriate. 

Still, the raid leader seems to come out of nowhere. 

"Where d'ya think yer goin' there, bub?" Sneered into his ear as someone grabs him by the back of the undershirt, holding fast as a blade presses to his throat. 

His adam's apple bobs and he feels the edge of the blade slice him even from just that small gesture, eyes trained on Fjord's back as the massive half-orc roars from a sword blow that strikes true and returns the injury with a blast of edlritch energy. 

"My boys 're about done mopping up yer friends," the voice growls in his ear, a greasy beard scratching at his neck with every word, and it's true. The Mighty Nein outclass these ruffians any day in skill, evidenced by how many corpses litter the ground, but they're being overrun in sheer numbers. 

His gaze does not waver from Fjord's back. There's blood framing him from either side of his white shirt, his shoulders heave with effort, but he raises the falchion again, again, again then stumbles back on a parry, rises and returns blow-for-blow but does not press forward again. 

Caleb's eyes close. Fjord does not concede ground easily. He's no swordsman, but this is amongst the basics Fjord has taught him: Giving ground is the measure just before retreat or death. 

"You their leader, eh? Trying to sneak off, live to fight another day? Coward." The blade at his throat presses that much tighter, and he thinks,  _oh, my love_ , but he does not open his eyes as Fjord's roar of pain rings out again. 

"I'm their prisoner," he says, heedless to how it causes the blade to score his neck further, "I thought to escape while you distracted them." 

A pause. Then he's bodily wrenched around to face the raid leader, opens his eyes and shrinks down to make himself as small as possible, as meek as people expect him to be, but he doesn't have to fake the shiver that racks him when the human smiles a yellow, rotted grin and says, "Bounty hunters, eh?" 

Caleb knows how pathetic he looks in his trousers and undershirt and scarf, sweating and weak from expending too much magic too quickly. Caleb knows that when people look at him there's not much to see. Looking as if he's no threat is half the trick of his battle prowess, has been from the beginning. People spend so much time on how utterly unremarkable he is that they never notice his hands below his waist, the magic that twines them. 

He casts the spell without flourish, isn't surprised when the other man's gaze goes expectant and attentive, because no one ever expects for Caleb to be half as sneaky as he is. 

His voice does not shake when he says, "Take me and go. You've lost at least a dozen men, but I'm worth the retreat." 

Expectant and attentive rather than incredulousness, the leader tilts his head as if they are not in the midst of a burning clearing as both of their friends scream and bleed around them, asks, "What makes you worth so much?" And his voice is so low, pitched from gravel to something so close to casual that Caleb already knows this will work, but he doesn't let himself really absorb the knowledge, cannot allow himself to tremble with fear of what he's doing. 

"I'm a deserter," he says, because the spell doesn't last that long and he has to be quick, he cannot fuck this up like last time, "I'm worth enough gold to keep your men in good spirits while they heal. You've bitten off more than you could chew here, you can't take a village with this many wounded. Take me to any lawmaster and the reward will keep you until you heal." 

For a heart-stopping moment he thinks it doesn't work. There's a furtive glance up-and-down of his threadbare form and he thinks,  _fuck_ , readies his hands for fire again before the leader's face splits into a truly terrifying grin. "Deserter, huh?" And it's a drawl, but nothing like the one Fjord has, nothing like the soothing, even tones that wrap around him like warmth and comfort and home, "Explains the fireworks and bullshit," he says, and he lets go of Caleb completely as he lifts his sword. 

He has the chance to dodge. To blast fire into the chest of his attacker, to duck under the swordhilt, to run off into the forest and abandon his friends to their fates and start a new life for—what? The third, fourth time? But he hears Nott wail in pain, can see from this vantage the unconscious form of Molly still under his tattered coat, can watch as Yasha's blurred form begins to corporealize into a solid target. They have won every fight they've encountered so far, they have never run from a battle or a foe, but they are not invincible. 

In the end, it's just that he doesn't have the strength to leave. It's just that he's spent his life running, and his legs are weary from it. These are the people he has chosen as family and he will pull any and every trick from his sleeve to keep them safe. So he doesn't move at all as the blow to his temple lands true but sends out a command to Frumpkin, commands his familiar, " _Stay. Stay with them. Keep them safe."_  

His little familiar friend gives an alarmed yowl somewhere in the back of his mind. The sound is cut off, swallowed whole by a darkness that is familiar and haunting, and it blots out the battle sounds and his friends' pain and his familiar's pleading, and his very last thought before he succumbs is a prayer to whomever might listen,  _Tell_ _him,_ _please._  The scar on the side of his neck is pulsing in time with his heartbeat as the raid leader catches him around the waist with a bellowed command of retreat and he thinks _,_ _tell him I'm sorry._  


	2. Dereliction of Duty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fjord and co regroup after the attack.

There's blood on his face. 

It normally wouldn't bother him—he's not shy about using his head as a weapon when called for, and he has the scars to prove it—but it's congealed over one ear, muffles everything he hears out of that side. 

Doesn't matter much through the concussion, and it sure as fuck doesn't stop the trio in front of him from giving him their all, so he's due a little forgiveness for not quite hearing what catches their attention the first time it's yelled. All of their faces go confused, then angry, then meld into resentful as he stands there, falchion in hand, bleeding and sweating and cussing, watching them back away. 

"You fuckin' lilly-livered sons of bitches," he growls, all fangs and froth and fury, "Come on and fuckin' fight me if you got the balls."

One of them starts forward again, but his buddy blocks him with an arm, says, "You heard him," in a voice that brooks no argument.

And what the fuck does that mean? He makes sure to catch it the second go around: " ** _Retreat_** , I said!" From somewhere behind him, but he doesn't dare turn his back on the men in front of him, even as they give ground with weapons still drawn, "You get left behind, it's yer own problem!" And the voice is at the entire opposite end of their campground, easily sixty or more feet away, but Fjord doesn't dare glance back, doesn't dare lower his weapon even as the human scum in front of him sheathe theirs and take off into the woods, and only one of them takes the time to spit at his feet in contempt. 

So that's a day well done, far as he's concerned. 

But he pursues a few feet to be sure that the raiders have actually left, that it's not just a trick, then walks a tight perimeter of the camp. That's how he finds Jester and Nott huddled over Molly's body, both of them hysteric as Jester's healing magic pours into him. His eyes skim right over, counting off the three of them, then Beau and Yasha as they approach, and he reaches behind him to intercept Caleb who had been behind him during most of the battle- 

And comes up empty handed. 

Fjord whirls, then stands stock still because he's just walked a perimeter of the camp, and he'd have fucking noticed if Caleb had been amongst the fallen. His eyes sweep back to Nott and Jester, clustered over Molly and trying to revive him to consciousness, and then he feels what blood he has left drain his face. 

Caleb's cloak is draped over Molly's body. 

(The thing about orcs, as he'd explained to Caleb, was that they took partners as a form of currency. An orc with many wives was a mighty orc indeed. They're possessive to a fault, he'd said as Caleb had  _tsk_ ed his tongue with amusement, and they mark their partners with a bite to the neck. 

Caleb's hand had brushed at his own neck—still swollen, not yet scarred—and smiled that mysterious little grin he sometimes wore, said, "That doesn't sound too bad at all.") 

It feels like it only takes a single step for him to be there, clutching at the cloak, at the heirloom books tucked into the compartments of it, turning in a distantly dazed circle, looking for his wizard who would be in only his thin undershirt and scarf but there's nothing but armored raider to meet his gaze. There's nothing, so where is Caleb? 

"He told me to come to you," Nott is saying, "So I did! I saw him after and he was talking to a man that had him by the throat but I! By the time I! Got free, they were retreating!" She sobbing, the goblin girl, her porcelain mask hanging off her face by the strings as she pulls at her hair and thrashes bodily, "I didn't see him! I didn't seem him again! And Frumpkin!!" And Gods be damned but there the fucking cat is, purring and rubbing against her legs in a desperate attempt to calm her, "Can't talk! He's a cat, not a person! He won't tell me anything!!" Her voice is a shriek, and she's as in danger of hyperventilating as Fjord is the longer they stand there and wait for Caleb to magically appear. 

Yasha has arrived, all concerned for her carnival friend, and she kneels as she says, "Maybe he followed them? Does that sound like him?" She has to ask because she knows them the least, is still only really close to Mollymauk, has only a budding  _something_  with Beau, so she doesn't know how patently stupid that sounds. 

"Caleb is not exactly the following type," Jester says, an off-hand comment as Molly starts to stir but her hands stayed wreathed with light, "He is more the hide-under-the-cart type, but  _I_  was under the cart with Nott, and neither of us smelled him, so." 

His grip on Caleb's coat tightens at the barb, well-meant if meant at all, but he says nothing. His eyes meet Beau's as she joins them, says, "Well judging by the amount of fire I just put out, he's over his whole no-burning thing." 

And that's- that's true, he realizes with a start and another quick look around. Caleb has fire in his veins that he only rarely wields. Caleb cannot actually burn a man alive without getting pale and panicky over it. Caleb would much rather identify their valuables and do monster research than participate in a fight, especially if it's a fight against other humans. And he'd mark that down for simple squeamishness, except that Caleb is  _good_  at killing when he wants to be, to a level beyond innate talent. Of the dozen or so bodies they'd felled, at least half bear some evidence of scorch marks, so where's the man that made them? 

Caleb's cloak was laid on top of Mollymauk. How did it get there? 

"He any closer to waking up?" They're Fjord's first words since the raiders, and he hears the strain in his voice, hears the anxiety even with through the pressure in his skull and the blood that's closed one ear, so he's sure the others hear it just fine. 

Jester lifts one hand from Molly's chest, reaches into her pocket, pulls out a stale bit of tart and chews it mindlessly, her eyes only for her patient, "He's out of the voods for sure," she says, "But do not think he'll be up and talking riiiiight away." 

She says it with a glance back at him that's as apologetic as Jester gets, that tells him that she knows what he's thinking and she wishes she could do more. 

(On the ship he'd been part of a family, of sorts. It's inevitable in close quarters and weeks of isolation. He didn't cry for them after the shipwreck. 

Maybe that was better.) 

"Look, guys," Beau tries, and she's got her arms around Nott now, trying to get the inconsolable girl into her lap, get her hands out of her hair, "You're being super negative right now for no reason, you know? Maybe he was in a tight spot and had to run off to save himself." 

That brings him exactly no comfort as he lurches to unsteady feet, swaying and swimming like a drunkard but unwilling to think of Caleb just out of their sight, collapsed and bleeding and hurt somewhere beyond the tree line. 

Yasha says, "Unlikely. The familiar would be with him." 

Frumpkin snakes around Beau's neck—he may be allergic, but Beau revels in the little creature's attention—and miaous pitifully. 

"So he's not here," Fjord rumbles, and isn't sure how long he can convince his feet to stay under him, "And he's not nearby. So where the hell is he?" 

 _Our paths beget divergence_  Caleb had told him, months ago, but—no. They'd made their peace with that, Fjord had  _marked_  him, had promised to always come back for him. 

"He wouldn't just leave!" Nott insists, fighting Beau's grip but not putting her back into it, "He wouldn't just go! He wouldn't!" 

"Well, why would _they_ want _him_?" Jester asks, apparently done with Molly as she collapses into a puddle of exhaustion, chewing on another pastry, "He wouldn't make a very good prisoner. Or a ransom. Why did they even retreat—which I am very thankful for, please no one come out of the woods if you are listening—when they were winning?" 

And that doesn't make any godsdamn sense either. The three guys he'd been fighting, hell, they'd been a moment away from getting him prone and they'd known it. They'd been pissed to be called offa him. Looking at his companions, Fjord does a critical summary of their injuries and realizes that everyone else was right there with him. 

It's another cold sweat, as if he's in need of one, to know that an additional twenty minutes would have seen them all dead. 

"He was talking to someone?" He asks Nott, his brain finally catching up to him. 

She nods, miserable but finally lifting Frumpkin to cuddle, "Yes, a man. One of them. He grabbed Caleb and had a blade to his throat and then he didn't and I was trying to get to him but there was a lot of stuff from him to me and then they were all retreating anyways but I didn't see Caleb after that!!" 

"What about the man?" His fucking brain is throbbing, definitely a concussion, and he can barely hear anything around "blade" and "throat" and "Caleb" as bile rises in his throat, "Did you see him?" 

Nott shakes her head and doesn't speak.  

It doesn't make sense. Caleb's not worth anything to anyone that doesn't know him—and that's by design, they all know. Why would the raiders take him and then take off? They could have killed everyone, looted all their shit, and taken Caleb anyway if that's what they were after, but they hadn't. 

( _You_ , Caleb had said, his mouth swollen from sucking Fjord's cock, his voice a rasp with Fjord's fingers in his ass,  _I was afraid_ you  _wouldn't come back_. 

But they'd gotten past that. He'd marked Caleb. He'd proven to the wizard in every way he could that come hell or highwater, they'd find a way through it together. 

Hadn't he?) 

"I don't think we'll figure this out tonight," Yasha says, voice gentle and velvet as she cradles Molly's head in her lap. "We should get some rest if we can. Maybe he'll be back by the time we wake." 

He's missing something and he knows it. There's a puzzle in front of him that he's not seeing. 

But his knees are shaking just from the effort of standing and his vision is a blurred mess and he's of no good to anyone right now, won't be without some rest. 

"I'll take watch," Beau offers, reaching to set a hand on Yasha's shoulder and then—not. The two women stare at each other for a moment until Yasha silently nods, lifts Molly easy-peasy, carries him to where their bedrolls had been and settles down for the night. 

Whatever it is that's between then, it's budding.

For his part, he takes Nott by one hand and Jester by the other and wordlessly cajoles them into some semblance of order. They share Caleb's bedroll—Nott's is a scorched and trodden wreck—and Fjord turns so that his back is to them. 

He still has Caleb's coat in his hands, the knee-length, patched work, over-Mended fabric thin between his fingers and distinctly smelly. No matter how many times he washed the damn thing, he could never seem to get the scent of warmed-over garbage out. Caleb didn't seem to mind it a bit, eyes crinkling at Fjord's exaggerated exasperation every time he brought it up. 

( _I'm not the man I thought I would be_  he'd said, kneeling between Fjord's thighs, hair sopping wet and clean for the first time in a long time. He'd been so brave and suffered so much, but he still had trusted this giant of a half-orc who was half a stranger. Still had let Fjord at his back. At his throat.) 

Now he presses the ratty fabric to his nose with shaking hands, breathes deep, and catches the bits of Caleb underneath the filth, catches the comfort of old books and the sharpness of fresh ink, catches the cinnamon and charcoal, or else imagines that he does. 

He folds the coat into a square, sets it under his head as a pillow. 

 _I will_ always _come for you_ , he'd promised, and then he'd marked Caleb as his so that he'd never forget or doubt it.  

He'd meant Soltryce and Zadash and Raxenburg and all the rest. He'd meant that no matter where their paths led, they'd figure it out together, as partners. 

But he'd promised, and that's not something he takes lightly. 

 _I'm coming for you_  he thought out into the world, and wondered if, somewhere, Caleb was remembering too. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I probably won't get to write again until this weekend! So I figured I'd bust out this lil filler chapter since you guys have been SO incredibly kind!!  
> I honestly can't say how much I appreciate everyone's words of love and motivation, yall keep this trainwreck rolling <3


	3. Books and Covers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Caleb learns to be more careful with the company he keeps.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going!! To have a much longer chapter!! But I decided to split it into two because I'm tired and out of time for writing for the day but you guys have been so kind in the comments that I felt bad leaving this until the weekend!

Here's the thing: breaking out of prison had been stupidly simple. 

Caleb had sent Frumpkin ahead of them to scout, then followed with Nott leading the way. There were always various feral cats roaming around, hunting the rats of the common floor, so no one noticed as an orange tabby crept around corners and up stairwells, and so no one saw the two figures lurking behind it. 

There'd been some close calls, some guards off duty and wandering at will. The guards loved to play games with the prisoners, to bait and beat them. At one point Caleb had thrown globules of light into a far corner to distract a group of them. 

It had worked. They'd been in that stinking hell hole for months, and out in a little under two hours. 

So when he wakes and it's twelve hours later and his hands and feet are numb from being hogtied behind his back and he's face down in a cart and he's got no idea what's happened to his friends, if anyone found Mollymauk in time to save him, if anyone was left alive to do the saving, his first thought is that it's not the worst thing he's ever experienced. 

( _Water and cold and the burn of bile in his throat, no, this is not the worst thing by far._ ) 

He's cleverer than people give him credit for and that's by design. He is purposefully non-threatening, he is always downplaying his own power, and some of that is because of the before  _(fire and smoke and screaming)_ but some of it is to keep from becoming a target. 

His hands and feet are numb from being hogtied behind his back, which also aches from the unnatural angle, and he'll have indentations of the planks of the cart on his face for  _weeks_  probably, and the mark on his neck pulses in time with his heartbeat, but he's Caleb Widogast and he's gotten out of worse. 

"Packer!" From behind him somewhere, the driver of the cart, "Your fuckin' mage is awake!" And he doesn't sound happy about it. What's happened while he's been sleeping? 

A horse knickers somewhere and the cart dips slightly as the raid leader pulls himself over the side. Packer's beard is still greasy, his shifty eyes still a watery blue, but his skin looks a good deal more jaundiced in the light of day than it had by firelight. 

Stupid, Caleb thinks, stupid but strong. 

Rotted yellow teeth bare in something approximating a smile as Packer stoops over him, one hand reaching out to the side for balance. "Well looky here," he croons, "That was a mighty interestin' spell back there." The victims of the  _friends_  spell always know that they've been altered, that something  _other_  has influenced them, and they are  _never_  happy afterwards, "Left yer friends alive fer sure. By the time it wore off it was too late to turn around and finish 'em off." 

Did they make it? Did he act in time, did anyone find Mollymauk hidden under his cloak, Nott and Jester under the wagon, Yasha and Beau dueling back to back? What happened to the three men facing Fjord, and did anyone heal the dripping wounds in his sides?  

Caleb doesn't dare let his fear show, doesn't dare drop his guard: he's a deserter, as far as this man knows, and he's good at stepping into a role, at wearing someone else's skin when his gets too tight to manage. He wraps his military bearing around him, lets his eyes go cold and disinterested, a prisoner changing hands, says, "Friends? Bit of a funny way of looking at it." 

Strength is not his forte, but he is  _clever_ , maybe clever enough to get himself out of this mess. 

Packer leans in so that Caleb can smell his rank breath and he would flinch away if there were absolutely any give to his ropes, but that would be a terrible mistake, so he counts himself lucky that there's not. "Dispatched one a my boys," he says, and oh that voice is violence, that voice is death, "Check with the nearest lawman, see if you're worth as much as you say." 

"I am," he says, and Packer gives a dark chuckle as he leans in closer, that moves his jaw in such as way that it leaves a strip of slick across Caleb's cheek, and he _does_  flinch at the first scratch of coarse whiskers.

"Then why'd ya convince me to take ya?" He had not considered that for all his filth and tattered clothes and unassuming demeanor that a raid leader might wear a disguise of his own. He had not considered that for his eyes and his jaundice and his shiftiness that Packer is the leader of a strong thirty or so men, that he ordered bloodthirsty fighters to pull out of a sure win, that Caleb is clever but that Packer might be as well. 

( _Water and cold and pain, pain as they slammed him in the stomach to vomit it all back up, as his sinus cavities filled to bursting, and he doesn't know if he can do this again._  

 _He has_ _miscalculated_ _and underestimated and it happened so quickly, but there was no other way._ ) 

(He is suddenly and fiercely glad Fjord's mark is safely tucked under his scarf and he cannot articulate why.) 

He swallows, maintains a face that is neutral at worst, says, "They were getting too close to turning me in. Figured I'd try my hand with raiders," and only half of it is a lie, because this really was the only trick he had, the only way out he could figure, and it's his scarf that's making his face go hot and red not Packer's continued proximity. 

A nip at his ear lobe that turns his blood cold. The wiry scrape of beard against the side of his face, and he doesn't dare move to wipe it, knows that he doesn't have enough slack in his rope to accomplish it anyway, but he knows that whatever facade he's been building is in danger of crumbling.

When Packer pulls away he's smirking, and Caleb is clever but his strengths lie mostly in avoiding notice, in deflection, and in this he has utterly failed. He's been on the receiving end of this gaze before: he recognizes the look a man gives when he's found something under him and likes the view. 

(Fjord's mark is under his scarf and it's hot, it's searing the skin it's scared to,  _it knows_  he thinks except it doesn't because there's no magic to it because he'd checked himself, but _gods_ if only there were.) 

(Where are his gods, now? They haven't come when he's called before, there's not patron, no deity for him, but he calls out into the void _please, please, I cannot do this again_.)

(If nothing answers it's just what he deserves.)

The thing is that when he and Nott escaped from prison, they'd had the benefit of the doubt on their side. They'd been meek and quiet and if Caleb had been victimized, had been the object of the torturer's fascination, it had only furthered the disdain the other guards had for him. They'd watched him come crawling back, carried back, from those hours or days long sessions, soiled and sick and sorry, and they'd sneered down their noses and writ him off as worthless. It'd been so easy to get out and now he fears that he has underestimated the role of their circumstances, that he has overestimated his capacity to keep himself out of trouble. 

He has thrown in with the raiders, counting on incompetence, biased by prejudice. 

From Nott he's learned that prejudices are always, always wrong. He should have known better. 

( _There'd been fire and smoke and ash and screaming, he is a monster, he is a murderer and a menace, and if he only can keep that in mind, if he only can be that man again without the panic and fear it e_ _licits_ _, he might survive.)_  

Packer's voice is dark, is danger, is destruction when he says, "Get some rest, little mage. We'll see what use we can get outta ya," and vaults over the side again. 

Caleb is on his side but his hands are still too numb, too closely bound for casting, so he presses himself against the wood and tries to make himself very small. 

He is cleverer than people think, and he got himself into this on purpose. 

He will get himself out. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think it's pretty clear that I'm gonna stretch this out- I'm thinking maybe 10 chapters or so? And that things are going to get a good deal more explicit than I had expected when I started this! Please check the tags after updates to be sure there's nothing added that's squiggy, but I will also do a trigger warning recap before each chapter! I want you guys to be surprised by my writing, not triggered by it!  
> Anyways, thanks a ton for the continued love and support <3  
> I know that not everyone is interested in reading something dark and angsty, so if it's not your cup of tea that's okay!! Self care is v. important!! I will have more fluff and smut up in the coming days and weeks to scratch that itch, so no worries!


	4. Plan in Motion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fjord and the gang get to the bottom of what's going on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This and chapter three were originally going to be one long chapter, but I've only just finished this bit! So it feels a little fillery to me, but there ya have it!  
> TW for blood mention and associated graphic injury!

Nott spends a considerable chunk of the morning pointing in different directions and casting her  _message_  spell that Caleb taught her. "It's not working," she snaps after every few failed attempts.Explaining to her that Caleb is almost certainly out of range by this point does nothing to assuage her. The goblin stalks closer to the tree line, spirals outwards as she points and casts, points and casts.

(He knows the feeling: What the fuck good is the mark he put in Caleb's neck if it can't help him  _find_  him?

What the fuck good is  _he_?)

Molly has nothing to give. "I took a blow," he says, gingerly supported by Yasha on one side and Jester on the other, "He saved me, I thanked him, and woke up here." It's not just not much to go on, it's  _nothing_.

(Caleb had laid his jacket containing his heirloom books over the Tiefling to protect him. Caleb, who has only ever referred to Molly by his surname.

Fjord knows that he's not the center of Caleb's world, that the wizard cares for each of the Mighty Nein in a way that's rooted in something like a pack mentality—unit cohesiveness, of a sort—but his compassion is generally withheld only for Fjord and Nott.

Molly's eyes dampen when they tell him how they found him, though he won't admit it. It's a kindness that few would have thought to afford while boxed in on all sides by enemies, and utterly unexpected besides.)

(As best he can tell, this is the Caleb that's at the heart of the man, trying to get out.)

Yasha braces him with one hand as Molly rises, tutting and gently rebuking her concerns, says, "Blood Hunters are monster trackers," because Molly loves to state the obvious, "But there were enough of them that they must have left a decent trail."

"Then get to it," he snaps and moves to follow. They're all snapping this morning, they're all angry and they're all taking it out on each other—it's easier than letting the fear surface.

Molly's red eyes have no pupils, but the lines around his mouth go deep, go sorrowful, but Fjord does not apologize.

They're in need of easy. Of simple. Of anger rather than anxiety.

( _I trust you_ , Caleb had said.

And what has that gotten them?)

From somewhere beyond the tree line, out of sight, Nott is muttering and cursing. Jester leaves Molly to lean on Yasha, gives Fjord a look that could be sympathy, could be murder. With Jester it's hard to tell. But he knows what she's getting at, so he turns away and goes to gather Nott for the expedition.

She promises not to slow them down, then she chugs from her flask.

It's against his better judgement. It's what Caleb would have wanted.

"Fine," he says, not unkindly though it'd be easier, "But no more drinking."

Nott nods, and it's a promise they both know she won't keep.

"I vill stay here, I think," Jester says, at the reins of the cart, "Protect our stuff and all that."

She'd spent a solid hour this morning pouring more healing energy into Molly, into Beau, into Fjord, and hours after that ensuring that all of them were appropriately bandaged, but Jester won't admit to being tapped out this early in the day. Not when the stakes are this high.

"I am not particularly stealthy," Yasha says, takes the seat next to Jester, "I will stay as well," and maybe it's the truth, or maybe she's just giving Beau her space.

They're friends, he and Beau, but she's young and beyond pissed off and today her  _whatever_  with Yasha isn't just on the backburner, it's off the stove. The monk's got some kinda chip on her shoulder, she crackles with nervous energy, hits every tree and shrub and rock she paces by with a solid  _thawk_ of her quarterstaff. 

They're friends, and he's trying desperately to keep his cool, though the anger would be easier, so he calls out, "You're with Molly and me," waits until she meets his eyes, all twitchy and nervous and pent up energy, "Might needa do some running or some kinda Monk shit."

They are all snappy and irritable and  _scared_  for Caleb, who had not returned by the time they'd woken, and they still don't know if he's nearby and just too hurt to get back or if—or if.

(He'd know, he thinks.

He'd know not to go looking.)

( _I trust you_  Caleb had said, and he'd meant it.

What the fuck has Fjord ever done to earn that?)

Cut him some slack. Cut all of them some fuckin' slack.

"Alright," he says, as though he's got any more say than anyone else, "Me, Molly, Nott, and Beau. Fast and quiet."

Nott walks past Jester to get to his side, and he pretends not to notice that Jester's hand darts out, that she whispers, "Bless you," to the goblin's back, that Nott's steps afterwards are significantly more steady afterwards. Her huge yellow eyes are still glazed with drink and dread-- there's no blessing that can remedy it.

It's against his better judgement, but it's what Caleb would have wanted. So he waits for Nott and pretends not to notice her sneak a swig from her flask.

There's tracks through the woods in all different directions, but they all merge after a while. Mollymauk the Blood Hunter takes point, stops every few moments to consider. Fjord has no fuckin' clue what he's looking at, but every now and then Molly makes a little  _hmm_  or an  _aha!_ noise, which he supposes means they're going in the right direction if it's not all bullshit.

Eventually they trail into the main road. Clear as day there's fresh marks of cart wheels, there's fresh hoofprints, and Fjord doesn't know how to feel about it. 

(He was supposed to keep him safe.

His wizard isn't  _weak_  by any means, but he and Nott had been half starved when they joined up, Caleb notably more so than his companion. Though he's a good deal better than those early days, just months of travel hasn't been enough to put what Fjord would consider a healthy amount of meat on his bones.

He was supposed to keep him safe, keep him close so he had the room to heal.

How has he fucked up this badly?)

But Molly crosses the dirt road, the solid wheel ruts, heads into the forest again, murmurs,"  _Most_  interesting," to himself like it means anything, beckons Nott closer and says, "See that?"

"Blood," the goblin says, and she doesn’t have to stoop to get closer to it, but leans anyway to set her hand into a footprint pressed into the mud, "But not Caleb's." Her eyes are round as saucers, equal parts rage and the fear it's supposed to be masking, "Someone left the raiders. One of their own."

Molly draws one of his scimitars, does not set it cackling with ice, says, "Let's see who we've got."

It's fast, after that.

There's a trail through the forest headed in the opposite direction of the cart tracks that becomes haphazard and obvious even to an untrained eye, that marks someone's dying path. Beau, the fastest of them, takes the lead because they don’t know how much time they have and they need to find a survivor.

But whoever they're chasing has a twelve hour head-start, and they fan out to cover more ground as the underbrush grows denser. Time is of the essence: They cannot interrogate a corpse.

For a single heart-stopping moment, he's sure that's what he's stumbled on when he finds the man.

Not one of the ones that'd been dueling him in the end, this one had the misfortune of pitting himself against Yasha if the gaping wound across his abdomen is anything to go by. Half his beard is scorched off (what did it cost Caleb to use that sort of magic?) and he's sitting in a pool of his own blood, propped up only by the tree he leans against.

Fjord is so focused on the trail he's following that he actually trips over the guy's feet.

"You alive?" Fjord asks, kicks the leg nearest him, isn't sure what he'll do if he's just found their only lead already dead.

Then a rasping breath, a heaving cough, and he knows what a collapsing lung sounds like, knows how much it hurts. Can't find it in himself to give a damn."Hey," he says, and crouches so they're face to face, is vaguely aware of the others catching on and gathering around, "You gonna talk to me and get a quick death, or you wanna lay there and suffer another coupla hours?"

It's a ruthless bargin, but not a cruel one. Caleb hates suffering, hates hurting people, but- he'll take anything. Anything that gives them a chance.

"One 'a you fuckholes," the man breaths, voice haggard, "If it weren't for yer feckin' mage, we'da killed you, ya know."

He does. They all do. So why aren't they dead?

"What'd the mage have to do with it?" And he pitches his voice low, soothing, though his fingernails tear into his palm with the effort. They're running blind, here. They need whatever the man has to offer.

"He feckin'," a series of coughs, wet enough that Fjord feels it on his face, "Feckin' put a spell on Packer. Made him take 'im and go. Said he was a deserter, 'd be a reward for him." He spits at Fjord's feet, could not look more disgusted with the fate he's been dealt as he lays dying surrounded by the people he almost helped kill, "Won't work, 'a course. Been a while since we've had a _toy_ for Packer."

Fjord's growl is cutting the air before he knows what he's heard, his heart processing the threat before his mind does, and the man laughs and laughs and laughs, even as blood begins to trickle from his mouth, "Is that how it is, then? Oh sonny, there's not gonna be much left for you. Packer doesn't play nice with his toys, specially not a pretty thing like your-"

"Watch your fucking mouth," Beau says.

Fjord cannot actually breathe. The fact that Caleb—what this man is saying is that Caleb  _sold_  himself,  _threw_ himself away to buy them a shot. What this man is saying is that somewhere Caleb is either on his way back to prison, which he only ever narrowly escaped in the first place, or in the clutches of a man that  _doesn't play nice with his toys_.

They've never talked about it, but Fjord isn't as stupid as he looks. People see the orc in him and write him off, but he's seen the way Caleb shrinks from loud, aggressive personalities. He's seen Caleb flinch at the sound of shattering plates, at an explosive gesture he didn't expect. He knows that Caleb is the type of man to give and give and give until he's all wrung out, until there's nothing left, and isn't so naïve as to think that no one's ever done it before.

( _I trust you_ Caleb had said,  _It's_ _harder for me than it once was_ , and what the fuck has he done to earn it? What the fuck has he done other than fail, utterly, in this most important thing?

He put a fucking mark on the side of Caleb's neck without half a thought, and has struggled with the possessiveness, the protectiveness, all the inherent bullshit instincts that came with it, and Caleb had loved every bit of it.

What the fuck sort of partner has he been that Caleb was willing to do this to himself?)

 _(You should have just left me_  Caleb had said, and he'd thought they were past that—but here they are.)

The man in front of them is leaking blood from a half dozen places, trickling from the mouth, cannot breathe without wheezing and coughing. He'll be dead within the hour.

Fjord rises and wipes his face with the back of his hand. "Let's go," he says, as if he has any more say than anyone else, "We'll get Jester and Yasha, follow them. There's less of us so we'll make better time. Oughta catch up within a day." Too long, by far. It's already been too long, but it's what they've got.

"You said you'd gimme a quick death," the man at his feet says, voice half gurgle with the fluid in his chest, "You  _said_."

Nott says, "Got a death for ya right here," slips her short sword in just enough to finish collapsing the lung. He gasps, mouth gaping for air that won't find him as Fjord turns, and Molly, and Beau.

Nott watches. They're all the way back at the cart before Nott catches up to them.

"Alright?" He asks because it's the right thing to do, it's what Caleb would have wanted.

"Yeah," she answers, her hood pulled low, the bandages on her hands and wrists wholly crimson, "I am."

Fjord lets the lie settle between them. Faces forward and keep walking. Caleb hates hurting people, hates suffering, but—Caleb used  _friends_  on a raider to keep them all alive. 

Caleb trusted him to come for him, like he'd promised to do, and he's a day behind schedule.

( _I trust you_  Caleb says in his head.

He will be worthy of it.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well now we're getting somewhere! This is really flexing my writing muscle, I worry that I'm a bit out of my depth with so many characters to keep up with! Usually I only have one or two in a scene at a time, so this was by far the most challenging bit for me to write; I hope it doesn't come off as too clunky!  
> As always, thank you guys so much for the continued outpouring of love and support, I cannot understate how much I appreciate everyone who bothers to comment or kudos!


	5. Regret

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Caleb starts to figure out exactly what a mistake this was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tw for graphic injury!!  
> This chapter was the reason why I wrote Reprieve, haha, so if you want an extra punch to the gut go read that first!

He's been through worse. That's what he keeps telling himself. 

The raiders begin to make camp at sunset, but they don't finish until well after dark. There's very little organization to them, very little in the way of roles and chores, so it takes them  _forever._ The fire in the center of camp is huge and smoky because what have they to fear from the night? Why should they travel discreetly? There's not even a watch posted, though Caleb received his own guard to escort him to and from the bathroom. 

Not that he needs to often. It's been a day and a half and they still haven't fed him. He's gone longer without, but he's been spoiled by months of regularly meals. They mean to keep him weak, keep his magic at bay—many of them still bear the burns that inspire their caution—and it's working. There's not so much as an ember stirring in him now, and the lack of it itches from the inside-out. 

His wrists are raw in their binds. They must know how the deprivation has weakened him, they must see that he's no physical threat, but disgust and fear still lingers in their eyes. It's a modicum of power that could help him, if he can leverage it. 

No tents, only bedrolls haphazardly placed, but Caleb is staked, like an animal, by an extra bit of rope tied about his wrists. He's allowed to get his feet under him, can walk a small circle, but stays shackled. 

It's more, but not enough. And it's entirely too close to the fire. 

Behind his eyelids visions flicker and voices croon at him, scream at him  _stop_  and  _no_  and  _please_ and  _monster_  and  _you'll get yours, Wi_ _dogast_. What a promise, what a curse, and this is not the least of what he deserves, he knows. He's been through worse and if there's any justice at all in the world more will find him before it's all said and done. This is not the least of what he deserves, by far. 

Still, Nott is probably frantic with worry. A goblin without clan is—unnatural feels like a harsh word, there's nothing unnatural or wrong about Nott, but it's certainly not ideal. He knows that much of her anxiety stims from it. He knows it's been better for her since they began traveling in a larger group. He knows that she still leans on him, knows that their symbiosis is as much a part of her as his magic is to him. 

There's no shame in needing someone, in the comfort of familiarity. He cannot leave her to her demons. 

Next to the fire his head is foggy, he's dangerously close to being sucked into the past like a vortex, and he knows that his position was chosen to keep him in sight, keep him honest, but it's hard not to imagine that Packer sees how affected he is by it. Especially when Packer has been prowling in his peripheral vision for hours, his hulking presence taunting and baiting him. He's shackled and staked like an animal, and Packer prowls like a predator. 

(Caleb knows the look in a man's eyes when he finds something under him and likes the view. 

Caleb knows the hook to a man's smirk when his toys have all been worn out and a new one is ready.) 

That will change, when the runner returns. He's told them he's a deserter of the army and it's well known that those fetch a handsome reward. He's played himself up as a battlemage that got cold feet, ran into the night like the coward he knows he looks like, and if it makes them wary of his fire it blinds them to his stealth and intellect. 

If they learn the truth, they will do worse than kill him. 

 _You'll get yours,_ _Widogast_  and what a name he has. A forest stranger, a wood guest. Unarguably Zemnian. He's been through worse than this, but if Packer learns what he really is, they'll invent new forms of torture just for him. 

( _where are you where_ _are_ _you where are you_  he sings to Frumpkin, but the tether between them is stretched thin. His familiar is alive and out in the world and with his friends, following Caleb's last order. 

The mark at his throat pulses to his heartbeat, safely hidden under his scarf.  _There's a lot of stigma_  Fjord had told him,  _it's a claiming_ _mark_. He'd been thrilled, gone hot and fluid with the idea of it. 

Now he carefully does not fidget with the fabric round his neck lest he draw attention. Now he understands what Fjord had already known.) 

(He's only one man, godsdamn it, how can he be in five different layers of  _shit_?) 

The wind changes and blows the smoke directly into him. He shuts his eyes against the ash, lets his fingernails cut into his palm,  _no_  and  _please_  and a desperate, broken  _stop!_ Hadn't there been a life before? He remembers one (there's nothing he forgets, every moment of his life plays on repeat in excruciating detail,) he remembers the house and the bed and the people who had filled both. He remembers waking in the morning with a smile and drinking coffee and quiet breakfasts, a book in one hand and holding a hand with his other. 

He remembers these things through the fog, and even as he remembers the feel of the bedsheets, the exact stairs that had creaked going down to breakfast, the scent of the air in the little country house, he can hear the screaming laid over it. 

A different man, now. He wouldn't know what to do with that sort of life anymore. Certainly doesn't deserve another go at it. 

"Lookin' a little parched, there," Packer says at his side, and when did the raid leader slip so close? How could he have let his attention wander like this? 

"That would be the dehydration," he says, toneless and faintly aloof. Let them think him frightened and cowed. Let them think he'd gotten himself into more trouble than he'd expected. 

The fact that it's true doesn't take from the fact that he has to get out. Before the runner returns with the lawman's proclamation. Before they figure out what they're really dealing with. 

Packer has his eyes on Caleb's face, his pale arms, his thin torso. He pulls a water skein from his side, uncaps it, lifts it to Caleb's lips. "Won't do," he grunts, "You dyin' on us before we turn ya in." 

He shouldn't. It's a trap even if he can't see how. He shouldn't, but he has to keep his strength up for his eventual escape. 

So he does. 

The water is cool on his tongue, and at first sip there's no bitter-herb, no bite of poison or drug. The second sip is much the same, and so is the third. Before he knows it, he's drank half the skein and a rivulet of water runs from one corner of his mouth, down his neck, makes a dark patch in the fabric of his scarf. 

Packer pulls the skein away, and the look in his eyes tells Caleb that the trap is sprung but what is it? He's drank half a skein of water but it doesn't ease the ache of hunger in his belly, the fog of memories in his head, and when he'd got out of prison he'd had Nott to keep him focused on his goal, he'd had to keep her welfare and safety in mind before all else, but surely he's not so far gone that his own doesn't warrant the same amount of attention? 

( _Please_ and  _no_  and a gut-wrenching  _stop_! 

He doesn't deserve his own attention, he doesn't deserve any of the safety and love that Nott and Fjord have afforded him, the casual companionship of the others. 

What he deserves is pain and darkness and a life lost without remark.) 

(But he's a coward, so he’ll fight it until he can't anymore.) 

"Heh," Packer grunts, "Got a lil something here," and Caleb actually flinches when Packer's filthy fingers brush the wet patch of his scarf, flinches like a spooked animal, like a  _fucking idiot. "_ Aw," Packer drawls at him, leans him in real close as Caleb goes still as stone, "Don't worry, luv. Jus' don't wan' ya to catch yer death. You know, before we turn ya over." There's something in his voice, something predatory and patient, something that will get him killed if Caleb is not very, very careful. Packer's filthy fucking fingers unfurl his scarf, pull it slowly until it starts to slip from his neck, but he doesn’t break Caleb's gaze. 

He can physically feel the pulse in his throat, in his skull, a pounding that means  _run_ _run_ _run_ _!_  and only grows more desperate as he cannot obey. Stone still and silent and sedate, he forces his face into something serene and solemn, he cannot turn his mark from Packer and he cannot let Packer see it. 

( _There are stigmas_  Fjord had told him, and he hadn't listened. Hadn't cared. Had wanted people to see and to know that he was claimed by the emerald-and-holly half-orc, had wanted to be recognized as someone wanted, had needed to feel needed, undeniable to _some_ one in this fucking empire. 

And he loved Fjord. Really and truly and honestly. It'd seemed important to the bit of Fjord that he usually tried to hide away, seemed something instinctual and impulsive. 

He knows what it looks like to outsiders, for a human and a half-orc, but that's not how he thinks of them.  _There are stigmas_  Fjord had said, and he hadn't cared at all. 

Now he understands that, too, was Fjord trying to protect him. From moments like these.) 

Packer does not break his gaze, but his limip eyes seem to spark with delight when Caleb's face smooth into something disinterested and unaffected. It's part of his game. 

"There y'are," he croons, "That'll keep ya." He rises a bit, gives another slow smile as he goes. 

Caleb is starting to understand that Packer will not turn him over to the law right away. That Packer has been looking for a new toy (he knows what a man used to using looks like) and that Caleb makes a for a good one.  The Empire will never stop paying out for the return of deserters. No matter if the runner returns and relays Caleb's past; Packer can keep him indefinitely. 

He cannot shift without drawing more attention to himself, as Packer's eyes follow the lines of his jaw, of his throat, of his chest. Every long, lean inch of him taut and tensed. There's appreciation there, and he knows what it looks like when a man finds something under him and likes the view. When a man accustomed to taking what he pleases finds something he hasn't sampled yet. When Packer's eyes flit back to the side of his neck, his own close. 

( _It's a claiming mark_  Fjord had explained.) 

A low whistle as Packer stoops again, one grubby, grimy hand threading into Caleb's hair to forcibly yank his head back. "Well what have we got here?" He asks, though it's obvious. When Caleb doesn't answer, the grip in his hair goes tighter, "This what you deserted over? Left the battle mages corps to go play housewife for some fuckin' beast?" and oh that voice. That voice is acid and anger, fire and fury, and Caleb cannot stop the fear that sends a shiver down his spine. "That won't do at all," Packer says, and there's the sound of metal-on-leather as he draws his dagger, "Not for what I've got in mind for ya." 

The tip of the knife is in his neck. 

 _You'll get yours,_ _Widogast_ , and is this it? Is this the retribution that's been chasing him? 

The tip of the knife is in his neck and there's wet as well. 

 _No_  and  _please_  and  _stop!_  and had he listened? Had he cared? Had his pulse pounded then as it does now, or had he done his duty without thinking overmuch about the suffering he was sowing? 

The tip of the knife is in his neck, the hot wet of his blood streaming in the same path the water had earlier taken, and he has to go very deep into his own head to block out the blooming pain. He cannot afford to flinch or to cry out as the dagger carves around his mark. He cannot afford to budge, to give ground or take it. 

 _Monster_  they'd called him  _murderer_  and he is both of those things. He is every inch the man he never wanted to be. 

The tip of the knife is in his neck and the circle it's making is fire on Caleb's skin, fire like what runs in his veins and leaps from his fingers with only a twitch of command. If there were any Gods at all the rope round his wrists would break and that fire would leak from every bit of him. He'd scorch Packer into an oily smear on the ground. He'd burn everything around them to ashes, every one of the raiders now watching from a safe distance, the disgust in their eyes twined with fear. How stupid is he to have thought it was fear of him? 

 _Orcs are possessive to a fuckin' fault_  Fjord had told him and what will Fjord do when he sees what Caleb has allowed to happen? He'd told Caleb that he'd only ever make the one mark, that Caleb keeping it would keep Fjord from any other partners.  _I'm the monogamous_ _sort_ , he'd said with his hands on Caleb's back,  _I'd expect some reciprocation_. What will he think when he sees that Caleb has let his mark be taken? 

The tip of the knife is in his neck and his entire front is blood soaked—it's not a deep wound, by any means, Packer has his tongue between his rotted teeth in concentration—but necks are thin-skinned and can bleed  _forever_  without assistance. His pulse is throbbing but he does not dare move. Does not dare flinch or jerk or fling himself at the source of his pain as his body screams to do. He has to go very deep inside his head to block out the pain as it blooms, as it radiates from the meat of his neck into the muscles of his jaw, petals of it unfurling in his chest and back as every bit of him cries out. 

"There we are," Packer says in a voice that's all soft and salve, sheathes his dagger and reaches that grubby, grimy, greasy fucking hand to the flesh of Caleb's neck. Without the weapon at his throat Caleb should move away, but the other hand in his hair is tight and unyielding, would not allow the movement if he attempted it. 

When Packer pinches his fingers and peals away the skin of Caleb's neck. When Packer lifts it to show him the perfect shape of Fjord's teeth. When Packer's smile turns into something smirking and simpering, that's when he realizes exactly how badly he's fucked up. Packer tosses the mark into the fire, then tears a bit of Caleb's shirt, sticks it to the open flesh as a sort-of-bandage. Holds it until the blood begins to coagulate, until it stays on its own. 

Caleb had offered himself up and imagined being taken promptly to prison, having to escape without the help of Nott or Frumpkin but with the bonus of not being tortured and sickened and only barely grounded into his own body. 

As Packer smiles at him and says, "Doesn't that feel better?" as if he's truly done Caleb some sort of favor, he realizes exactly how fucking stupid, how optimistic he'd been. 

"He will kill you," Caleb says, because the time for pretending has ended, "He will rip your limbs apart," because he hopes it's true. 

 _It's a claiming mark,_ Fjord had said,  _You'd_ _be claimed by me_ , and what does he think of Caleb's self-sacrifice? The first time they'd kissed Caleb had  _just_  escaped a near-drowning thanks to his own panic. Fjord had been angry and unimpressed with Caleb's lack of regard for his own life and safety. Recently he's been trying to think better of himself, to care more about preserving his own life and this— 

This will change everything. Fjord will be absolutely furious, if he isn't already. Fjord will be—will be free of him, he realizes, free without the monogamy of the mark to keep him. 

What has he done? What in the name of all the gods has he done? 

Packer's hands are gentle as he rewraps Caleb's scarf around his neck, apparently not minding that it's still wet with water as long as it hides the evidence of Caleb's former allegiances. "Let 'im try," and that voice is predator, is placating, is vaguely pleased. "Don't fret. Orc won't want some damaged bit of old-news," and how did he know that's the exact fear running through Caleb's head? "But I don't mind it none." His breath is so sour it nearly makes Caleb gag as the hand in his hair finally gives off, his scalp tingling from the release of pressure as his head drops forward and his blood drips onto the ground. He does not dare to touch his make-shift bandage, does not dare look away from Packer as the raid leader smiles and says, "Prefer 'em a lil broke in, as it were." 

There are snickers from around them as the on-lookers begin to back away, make room for Packer to walk through as their boss heads to his bedroll for the night. More than one of them look uneasy enough that Caleb wonders—are they ever the victims? If they aren't able to find someone for Packer to play with, does he choose from amongst them? His own blood is hot and sticky against his skin and he wants to feel angry with them but can only muster it for himself. 

 _You'll get_ _yours_ _,_ _Widogast_. It's what he is: a forest stranger, a wood guest. A transient, always passing through, never settling in one place long enough for his demons to catch him. 

There was a life before the water, he knows. There was a home before the flames. He curls into himself on the ground, staked like an animal in the light of the campfire. 

He's been through worse, of course. But this might be the thing that kills him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I give the bonding marks I take them away!  
> Poor Caleb literally cannot catch a break, can he?  
> Some of you guys had questions as to why Caleb couldn't just link up with Frumpkin and get the gang to come get him. I'm trying to stay within the guidelines of the actual 5e spells that Caleb knows, so for the purposes of the story he and Frumpkin do need to be within 100 feet of each other in order to communicate! I hope I made that more clear here.


	6. A Petition for Aid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fjord reaches out to a rather unconventional source of help.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for rape in this one. It's third person, outside point of view.

They're making good time. The tracks are so clear they hardly need Molly's skills, only really consult him at crossroads and forks. With four of them on horseback and the cart moving at a brisk pace, they’ve compensated for the raider's head start and are only another twelve hours from the raiders. Less if they keep up the pace. 

That's up until the path veers into the forest and their tracking gets a lot more difficult. 

"What in the seven hells?" Molly muses, Beau beside him. They're shoulder to shoulder, the closest together Fjord's ever seen them without Caleb between them, and wholly focused on the ground ahead of them. "Why would they strike off from the main road if their intention is to turn Caleb in?" 

Yasha is at the reins of the cart, Nott by her side. Jester sits in the back with her map spread out, trying to figure out the logic, says "There's nothing really that way." She taps one blue finger to an equally blue mouth, "Not even, like, a cool cave or a big tree, or anything. Not for miles and miles and miles." 

"Well, what does that mean?" Nott holds Frumpkin in her lap. The cat rarely leaves her side. Fjord knows that though it's its own creature, but it follows Caleb's commands. He tries not to think about what Caleb might have told it to do in the moments before or after giving himself up. In any case, it seems to stick extra close to Nott. 

"It means," Yasha says, and the frown she wears is even more prominent than her usual one, "That they're not going to turn him over. Not right away." 

"He knows a little alchemy," Nott says, nibbling with worried teeth at a bloody bit of her thumb. Goblin teeth are not really meant for nibbling. Fjord does not reach down to take her hand from her, too busy clenching his own fists and trying to stay calm. "They might keep him for that." 

"It would take a very long time for him to make a deserter's fee with alchemy," Jester dismisses, but reaches over to pat Nott on the head. "There is something more going on here, for sure. And," Jester crinkles her nose, "It is very stinky doody indeed." 

She's not wrong by half. Any reason the raiders have to keep Caleb rather than collecting his supposed reward is a reason not obvious to Fjord. The ones he makes up in his head aren't at all comforting, either. 

"Well, they've certainly headed this way," Molly announces, making his way back to them, "The why of it is of no importance overall." 

Beau rolls her eyes, the monk still all jumpy and grumpy, sneaks a glance at Yasha, says, "I say we keep going. They came through here what? Twelve hours ago? Might be able to find their camp from last night." 

"Alright," he agrees, is pleased to hear his voice still calm through his increasing anxiety, "Might be a clue if we can find it." 

Beats standing here wasting time, at least. 

It's difficult to get their cart off the road, but not impossible. Especially when Beau finds covered wagon-ruts: evidence not only that they're going in the right direction, but that the raiders are at least attempting to be sneaky about it. 

The implication is that they're headed into what might be a base of operations. Fjord tries not to think about how narrowly they'd survived the first time around, in their own camp, how they probably won’t win if they have to fight Caleb's way out. 

 _I will always come for you._ He'd promised that himself. Caleb's eyes had gone hooded and delighted, as if Fjord had played directly into some ulterior motive, but considering that the motive had been to keep Fjord close, he hadn't exactly minded. 

He's the sort of man that believes in doing what he says he'll do. World'd be a hell of a lot better if everyone else were so inclined. Regardless of the risks, of the odds, he will go. 

 _I'm not opposed to that arrangement_  Caleb had told him. The memory of it drifts through his mind as they set the cart on the right path, and they rope the spare four horses behind it so they can find their own way through the underbrush.  _If you aren't_. Even with the shape of Fjord's teeth in his neck, even with his ass still sore from Fjord's cock, Caleb had to ask to be sure. It had hurt Fjord's heart then as it does now, as the thought of Caleb's very low self-worth always does. 

It hurts more that Caleb had been utterly wrong to give himself up. There's not a single other solution to their predicament that Fjord can think of and he's been playing and replaying that last fight in his head since it happened. There was no other call to make, but Caleb still had made the wrong one. 

Survival is not worth this fear. 

Night comes for them faster under the canopy of trees. Beau's goggles slip over her eyes, but the usual comments don't accompany the motion. Beau doesn't even really like Caleb, he'd thought. Beau thinks that Caleb is a pacifist nance that tries to bully the rest of them into seeking violence-adjacent solutions. So what's got her all riled up? 

He picks a path through to her side, shoulders her a bit as they walk together, carefully keeping an eye on the ground in front of them for any sign or clue. "Not yer fault," he says. 

"Not yours either," she says, half a snap, more heat behind the words than she means, he knows. Beau's young and sort of full of herself and usually wavering between high on adrenaline and pissed off at the world. They're friends, though. He likes her honesty and her spirit. She's good in a brawl and for a drink. He doesn't rise to the bait she's dangling, just waits. 

"It's so stupid," she mutters, which is funny because that's how she looks with fuckin' goggles on, "He just, you know? He saved our asses but  _fuck_  at what cost, right?" 

It occurs to Fjord, not for the first time, that Beau is not used to being around people who give a fuck about her beyond what she can do for them. From helping to run her family's winery to her short-lived training with the Monks, it seems like Beau has mostly been an employee, a body to fill a role.  

"I'm pretty pissed off about it myself," he admits, kicks at a bit of rock because he needs to kick  _some_ thing.  

"Can't be mad at him, though," and Beau's voice is a grumble but some of the hunch in her shoulders is smoothing out, "With how it turned out at all. Probably kicking himself enough." 

"Nah," and it's almost a joke, it's a lot closer than he thought he could get right now, "I got plenty of  _pissed_  for him, still," scoffs, "Gonna fuss his damn ear off after this. He's gonna get sick of me." 

Not as much of a joke. The comment settles between them, and Fjord knows he's doing a shit job of keeping his emotions off his face. 

Beau punches him in the arm—hard. 

"Shut up," she says, "'s not how it'll go and you know it." 

"Got something!" And Molly's not that far ahead of him, and his instinct is to sprint straight for him but he takes the moment to push Beau so hard that a startled laugh bursts from her. 

Then he runs. 

"Their camp," Molly says as Fjord approaches, "Cold, but it was definitely them." 

"How're you sure?" He steps into the little clearing, stares at each bit of ground before setting his foot down, can faintly hear Yasha pulling up just out of the area so the horses and cart don't roll over anything that might point them in the right direction. 

"Mostly?" Molly asks, striding with legs that are used to covering ground quickly, his tail streaming behind him in the low, stiff pose that means trouble. "This." 

Dark vision isn't an absolute thing. It takes him a minute to carefully make his way over to the Tiefling, near the remnants of a campfire. 

He almost wishes he'd just asked for a description, instead. 

The ground here is soaked with old blood. It's not enough to be a killing blow but—any is too much. Any at all chills him to the bone. 

"Look," Molly says, and toes something in the ground, "A stake." 

Like a fucking animal. They'd staked him to the ground like a horse, like a hound, and what? Cut him open? For their own amusement? 

"I'm gonna fuckin' kill them," he growls as the others gather around to see what the fuss is, "I'm gonna- I'm gonna turn them into- into—" 

"Into what?" Jester asks, bending to run a finger over the bloody dirt, "Into chunky salsa? Because that would actually be pretty cool." Her finger comes back more black than anything else, more muddy than bloody. "It's old," she adds, "And watery," because Jester is the healer, Jester's the only one that has any kind of medical training, "Surface wound. Bled a long time, but nothing, like,  _life_ threatening." 

The way her eyes narrow speaks to an anger she won't show. Jester is usually their morale, their motivation. Pointing out pocket-sized unicorns and the impossibility of all the magic in the world, Jester keeps their spirits high. She won't show how deep her anger goes, but Fjord's known her long enough to know that her levity is just a cover. 

"Chunky salsa," Nott confirms, Frumpkin draped around her neck like Caleb's scarf, "Maybe not-so-chunky by the time we're through." 

Fjord steps back. Considers them all. Molly's tail is low and stiff, a pose they all know means murder for whoever ends up on the wrong end of his blade. Jester's, for her jokes, flicks and thrashes much like Frumpkin's. Nott is a ball of anxiety, Nott has run out of liquor and thus coping mechanisms. Beau holds her center of gravity low, as if she expects an attack or wants to make one. Yasha lacks her usual vague bemusement, looks half a second away from falling into a pit of rage. 

They're tired. They've been on the road all day with few breaks. There's been absolutely no reprieve from the stress and the worry and each time they find something it turns out to be nothing. They've got no idea what they're walking into other than that it's going to be ugly. 

There's something he hasn't tried yet. Something he hasn't had the balls to do. It's not something he could accomplish on horseback, but if they take a rest for the night... 

"If it was good enough for them," he says, "It's good enough for us. We'll make camp here." 

Every eye is suddenly on him. "We should keep going," Nott says, a hair under a screech, "We're falling behind with the—traveling in the forest is slow!" 

"He's right," and though it seems to pain Yasha to say it, she does. "We're in no shape to run into them, on the road or at camp." 

Molly, of all people, is the one to agree. "We camp, we wake a first light, we plan, we kill every one of those fuckers." 

Jester tucks Nott under her arm, says, "It's a really, really good plan. Sleep first, salsa later," and wiggles her fingers in Nott's face. It is to Nott's credit that she does not bite them. 

Beau turns and stomps back off to the cart, radiation disapproval as she goes. A problem for another day. 

They don't bother with a fire, just bundle up all together in the back of the cart, one huge and toasty dog pile of odds and limbs. They've got rations to spare that don't need cooking, and the horses can graze as they are. 

It's just for a few hours, he knows. It's not what he wants to do, but Caleb would have taken one look at them and frowned in that awful, disappointed, fatherly way he can have. It's not what he wants to do, but he knows when Caleb's right, even if it's just the Caleb in his head. 

Fjord cushions his head with one arm, looks up at the varying shades of black in the tree limbs crosshatched above them, prays to his patron,  _help me. Help me find him._  

* * *

 

It's exactly as he remembers it. The bed he wakes in is set into the wall, just a mattress and fitted sheets, no personal belongings to speak of. It's his turn on watch, the voice in the bunk above him whispers. He rises and pulls on his boots. Climbs the ladder above deck without comment or complaint. 

The moon is full, as it was then, and it's a cloudless, gorgeous night. The waves rocking the boat are mild at worst; there's not a cloud in sight. 

It should have been an easy night. It was, before the storm rolled in and wrecked them. 

Fjord runs his hand over the wood of the mast as he passes it, feels a splinter sink into his forefinger. He looks at it, scrutinizes it, but no blood wells from the wound. Idly, he walks to the boat railing, peers into the distance. There are no clouds  _yet_. He doesn't know what time it is, but he knows he won't see them until it's too late. 

When he's ready, when he's braced himself, he looks into the water. 

His patron is some deep-sea Entity, all tentacles and Eye. The ship floats above the center of a pupil that goes on for yards—he can distantly see the rings of orange and yellow that mark the iris, and just barely can discern the ring of black that marks the end of the Eye, but it's a long ways out indeed. Underwater, tentacles that are too long to fathom, thicker than his body twice over, drift and wave in the currents and seems to affect the sea not at all, not a single deviant wave from how he remembers it that night. 

 _Learn, grow, provoke, consume_. These had been his orders upon solidifying their deal. He'd been given his life and his blade. He's been satisified with both. 

"I'm trying," he says, with none of the drawl he affects in waking, "But I can't. Not without him." 

A flash and his blade, his falchion, appears beside him, impossibly balanced on the wooden rail. 

"It's a wonderful weapon, but—" But what? "I need him." Need? "More than anything. I need him." 

The Eye takes a long time to blink. Fjord can see, under the surface of the water, the massive current the motion causes. It does not reach the surface, does not alter his memory of a tranquil sea, the gentle rollicking of the ship. When it opens, the pupil is whited out, foggy and unclear. 

The image that surfaces is of Caleb. 

His breath leaves him in one rush as he leans out over the railing, as if getting closer to the image will get him closer to his wizard. "Caleb," he whispers, but the image doesn't flicker. Caleb is on his side in a cart, hogtied, eyeing something just out of view. A man vaults into the cart, a man yellowed over with alcoholism or illness. Leans in close enough that his beard leaves a trail of grease on Caleb's cheek, his neck. His teeth are yellow and black when he bares them at Caleb's ear, nips it as he pulls away. 

Fjord's blood frosts over. The blade in front of him drips seawater into the sea, drops that do not mar the surface, until it crackles and goes icy as well. 

The Eye blinks again. 

Caleb, and they were right that he'd been staked in front of the campfire. It's a close up of Caleb's face, Caleb's freckles, Caleb's blue-gray eyes remind him of home. But what catches his attention is the way that Caleb goes pale just as a dagger drifts into the scene. 

Fjord watches as that same man, already marked for death, carves his mark out of Caleb's neck. 

"No," he whispers, because it's more than Caleb should have to bear, "Don't," as if that will stop anything. 

The man smiles something predatory and menacing and throws Caleb's skin into the fire. Fjord is an honest man, but he knows what that smile means. He knows what the next scene will be but cannot look away. His patron is giving him this for a reason. He has to believe that. 

The Eye blinks again. 

Caleb is unconscious. His mass of red hair is matted with dirt, with sweat, and it obscures his face from view. Fjord has never been so grateful for the wizard to be injured. His chest is bare, his trousers at his feet, and there's blood at his knees and elbows as they scrape along the ground. 

That man, the same man, and he must be the leader of them. This is the one that Fjord will kill, that Fjord will wipe from existence, and Caleb hates hurting people but Fjord will  _hurt_  this man and enjoy it. 

He watches the man rut into Caleb like an animal and roars into the night. He watches the man sink his teeth into the unmarked side of Caleb's throat until blood drips to the earth. He watches the man thread his dirty fingers through Caleb's matted hair and yank upwards, and it rips another roar out of him because Caleb is  _not_  unconscious, Caleb's eyes are open and stare straight through him, all foggy and mostly gray the way they go when he's far away in his head. 

The Eye blinks again, and the vision is gone but Fjord is splintering the wood beneath his fingers, is screaming and screaming and screaming into the night. As the seawater of his blade, the seawater from his eyes does not disturb the tranquility of the ocean. The only response he receives is the gentle rumbling of the waves. 

No one appears from below deck, as they would have in life. But clouds begin to accumulate in the distance. If he had seen them that night, it might have done them some good. 

There are many things that would be different, if he'd had the gift of foresight or a patron on his side. 

"Please," he asks, when his voice is hoarse and almost gone, " _Please_ ," because it's all that he can manage. It's the only thing he wants and he will give anything for it. 

A warmth rushes through him, a warmth that comes from outside of him, that feels distinctly  _other_  without feeling  _bad_. 

 _What was_  a voice tells him _what is_  and then, after a long pause,  _what could_ _be_. 

Fjord almost does not dare to hope. If there is anything he can do, anything at all to stop it from happening. Caleb would not approve of this sort of bargaining, but Caleb cannot live through something like that. It would destroy him from the inside-out. He had promised he'd always come for Caleb, and he will, by any means necessary. 

 _A gift_ the voice tells him, and he looks up on a whim, looks up and finds the storm clouds drastically nearer. In life, this was the moment he'd sounded the alarm. This was the moment he fellows had spilled from their bunks. In life, this had been the moment before his Patron had found him.  _For_ _work well done_. He's done nothing, so far, nothing in return for his blade. 

His mother raised him better than to look a gifthorse in the mouth. 

"Thank you," he says as lightning strikes the mast, sends it crashing, almost capsizes the ship. The Eye does not so much as blink, its lazy tentacles still aimlessly drifting. "Thank you." 

* * *

 

There's no seawater, when he wakes. He bolts upright in the cart, jostling more than one body, quells the resulting cries of alarm. 

"I know," he gasps, still waiting for the water to come, the expectancy doing nothing to hamper his elation, "I know where Caleb is." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ach! I've just realized that this included, I've written like 16k words this week! It's definitely all thanks to the love I'm getting from you guys, the good vibes are mighty appreciated! Literally every comment and kudos adds a year to my life.  
> Shout out to @Angel_in_ink for asking me to make Fjord or Caleb turn Packer into "chunky salsa." I snorted soup up my nose!


	7. Bitter in the Breaking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Caleb regrets leaving, regrets more the complacency that accompanies having friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All earlier trigger warnings apply: graphic descriptions and rape.

"No camp today." It passes over him, between men on horseback. They have him walking today, strung out behind Packer's horse. 

His neck itches around the bit of cloth clinging there only by congealed and crusted blood. They have him walking today. No food, very little water, and utterly exhausted in the exact way that he cannot afford to be. 

"Actually, boys," Packer says, his horse at the back of the procession, a leisurely stroll through the forest. The pace is as much for Caleb's benefit as anything: he cannot muster even a jog. "I'm wantin' to pack it in early. Get another long, eh,  _rest_ between here and home, yeah?" 

It spreads like a ripple through the ranks of men, those on horse and on foot. It's a visual, perceptible phenomenon the likes of which he's never seen before: each man reports the news, then checks over their shoulder first at Packer, then at him. 

There's a reason they want his magic a husk in his veins. There's a reason they want him tired, want him weak, want him vulnerable. It's the same reason Packer cut the mark out of his neck last night. 

 _Where are you where_ _are_ _you where are you_  he sings to Frumpkin on the stretched-thin bond between them. His cat, his familiar, his fae little companion is out and about in the world, keeping his friends safe if he can. 

 _Where are you where_ _are_ _you where are you_  he asks the fire that lives inside of him. Just days ago, not even a week, it had been at the flick of every finger. The earliest trick he ever learned: how to keep from burning down the shack every time he'd twitched. Now there's coals, ash, soot where once he'd blazed, and  _oh_  he'd  _hated it_  but now he'd kill and maim for even an ember of defense. 

He looks mostly at the ground as he walks, for safety, to keep from stumbling. His wrists are raw in their bindings and he's spent enough time staring at them that he knows the exact bit of the knot he could wedge something into to loosen it. It's a basic handcuff knot, and if he were left unattended for just a moment he could wedge something through the center of it, or pry it with his teeth, and get his hands loose, and—and then what? He's not got the strength for athletics or to fight his way out. There's a reason they've got him walking, today. 

The men turn round to look at their leader and then at his newest victim, breathe a palpable sigh of relief that spreads through their ranks like a plague; Caleb is clever, it's the proof he'd wanted that Packer needs regular and fresh meat to keep from his own gang. 

They are ruled by fear and brutality and their lives are always in danger of being shortened by their line of work or by having the misfortune of being in Caleb's shoes. They are most of them are mean and stupid and they cannot make a living without weaponizing those traits. Packer's hold on them is only this: he is mean and arrogant and cruel, but he's also smarter than them.  

There's a reason they want him tired and weak and vulnerable, why Packer wanted the mark out of his neck. It's the same reason his smile is edged with intent, why his eyes are alight with impatience. Caleb has no idea where they're going except "home," has seen Jester's map of the Dwendlian Empire and knows there's nothing in this direction, knows only that a raider base with its indeterminable borders is much harder to escape from than a prison. 

He is so clever that he knows what's coming next, knows that he cannot weather this sort of storm. He is absolutely not clever enough to figure a way out of it. 

"We'll break before dusk," Packer says, does not look back at his horse clears a small shrub, yanking Caleb bodily through it. "For the night, right boys? One last hurrah," and now he does look back at Caleb with the exact raptorial smile that Caleb expects, "Afore home!" and that voice is danger and death wrapped in the sort of derangement usually reserved for rabid dogs. 

It would be better, he thinks, if he had descended into a wild pack of fucking dogs instead. 

There is no Frumpkin for him, no fire. More than once he's operated purely on his intellect. On his side is the fact that no one ever expects Caleb to be half as sneaky as he is. Especially now, they look at him and see the bloodstains down his front, the frayed fabric at his neck, the way his eyes go foggy with hunger pains. They don't know that Caleb has lived more of his life hungry and dirty than he has otherwise. 

(There's no act to it at all, he's just used to it. 

Hunger, like a role or a disguise, is something a person can lean into as needed. He welcomes the hunger with open arms, lets it whet his appetite for freedom and revenge but mostly for escape. 

There's no trick to it, Caleb has just had an unfortunate life: his parents' annual earnings were less than Jester's daily allowance. He greets the lack of energy, the mental fog, and welcomes them in.) 

( _I will always come for you._ Fjord had promised. But that was before Caleb threw his life away on a gamble that's gone utterly wrong. That was with a mark in his neck. 

Fjord is not coming for him. He will have to do this himself.) 

When they do find a suitable place to hunker down, it's different than the night prior. Farther from the main road, for one thing. In a circle formation for another: the raiders make a loose circle around the fire. If he had anything to vomit he would: they are leaving space for a performance. To watch the 'last hurrah' before heading home.

He is a wizard, he is an adventurer, he is caretaker to a goblin girl.  
He is the evening entertainment.

Packer leaves him with the horse, says to one of the other men, "Get 'im ready, yeah?" and strides off to see to the business of breaking camp.  

 _Get him ready_. As if he's a meal rather than a man. 

(All he needs is a moment unattended to get his hands free. He's been under watch and guard for days now, but all he needs is a moment. 

There's no plan beyond that, but it's a crucial first step.) 

"Right,then, c'mon," and it's one of the scared-and-stupid rather than the mean-and-stupid ones. Caleb knows that Packer's chosen him on purpose, a little peak behind the curtain of what could be in this man's future. He leads Caleb off a little ways, for privacy. Rips a strip of his own shirt and wets it with water from his skein and starts to clean off the worst of the dried blood from Caleb's body. 

"That'll have to come off, 'course," and the man gestures to Caleb's shirt. No surprise there: it's filthy and bloody besides. 

"Would you like to cut it?" He raises his bound wrists, not high and not quickly because that would require energy, but enough to notice. "I seem to be without the use of my hands, and they..." Where was he going with this sentence? His attention lapses somewhere into the space between him and the raider's gaze, and he settles into silence while he tries to collect his thoughts. 

Packer is going to finish his claiming. He's trying very hard not to think about it, to keep his head clear of the anxiety and the exhaustion and all the other bullshit weighing down on him. There's no Frumpkin and no flames and no Fjord, he will have to do this himself, and he will have to do it soon. 

He is only one man. There are only so many hardships, so many tragedies, that he can bear in a lifetime. 

"Oh, bloody hell," and he does cut the shirt off of Caleb, a careful slit through the sides and sleeves, "Won't be needin' it, I guess," and that's a hell of a loaded statement if ever there was one. 

He is only one man. How has he gotten himself into so many layers of  _shit_? 

"Use the scarf," Caleb says once the impromptu washing starts anew, "Softer. More absorbent." 

There's a quick nod of thanks for the tip. He knows what he looks like: a man gone to slaughter that's accepted his fate. His stomach rumbles between them and though the raider curses at him, he cannot stop his knees from nearly buckling at the sensation. 

"Sorry, dreadfully sorry," he mumbles, voice gone all faint, "It's just, I can't—" and he laughs, a bit hysterically, "I can't feel my wrists. Or anything, really," and he raises his bound hands again, turns them to look at the shiny rope of raw flesh that the ropes have rubbed, in bemused befuddlement. "He'll take this off, won't he? When he does it?" 

There's a beat where he thinks he won't get a response. Then a heavy sigh, full of pity, "Yeah. Yeah, bub, you'll get your 'ands free at least." 

If they would just give him a fucking moment he could get them free much sooner than that. 

It's not much longer after that: there's only so much cleaning that can be done. He leads Caleb back towards the horse, finds a stake and sets it to the ground so that he's in clear sight as his fellows build up the camp fire. As he turns to go, Caleb grabs his sleeve: "Can I," and he gulps, his tongue dry as cotton in his mouth, a hinderance rather than a help, "I  _need_ ," and what does he need? Help? Food? Medical attention? Checks, all three, but there'll be nothing for him here. The raider that's bathed him is scared and stupid and stepping away already without a glance back. 

He'd escaped from prison with Nott and Frumpkin. Fjord has been very handy, lately at keeping him alive. So has Jester, for that matter. Sometimes when they have massive fights and he does particularly well, Beau will high-five him or elbow his ribs. Molly and Yasha take turns alternately kissing his forehead and patting his back on days when the memories are strongest. 

Fucking lunatics, the lot of them. He threw in with them against his best judgement, mostly because he thought it would be good for Nott, and look where it's gotten him. 

(His worst fear is not that his demons will catch up with him. Not that his past will loop around to bite him. He would deserve those things, and then some. 

His worst fear is that he will have lived a life so poorly that no one will stand with him when it happens.) 

( _It's a claiming mark,_  Fjord had said,  _I will always_ _come_ _for you_ , and by giving up the former he's lost the privilege of the latter. 

Packer will rape him, will claim Caleb bodily, and then keep him strung along behind his horse until his spirit breaks too, because that is the sort of man that Packer is—mean and cruel and arrogant and smart in all the wrong ways—but this is not Caleb's worst fear. His worst fear is the look on Fjord's face when he discovers how abysmally Caleb has failed.) 

It takes longer than he should for him to realize it. Packer's horse snorts and snaps him out of his reverie. The camp is a bustle of raiders building a fire and throwing down bed rolls and then coming behind other raiders to move those bed rolls and get a spit going for dinner, and the moving the rolls again and going out to hunt for something to put on the spit. It's chaotic and inefficient: none of them have a role or a duty to maintain, so they all wander around repeating tasks behind each other. It makes Caleb's head hurt to watch. 

And maybe it's the self-pity and the starvation and the dehydration, or maybe it's the fucking headache that the raider's disorganization gives him, but it takes him entirely too long to realize: They've left him without a guard. 

His head whips around so fast that blood begins to drip again from his wound. A problem for another time; there's no guard. Doubtless, the raider that cleaned him up was meant to stay and guard him. Obviously, Caleb was right when he pegged the man for scare-and-stupid, but this is truly ridiculous. He's staked the ground still and in plain view of the entire camp, but. 

He's already sitting. Holding his breath, he lowers his bound wrists to the ground. Then he begins to lean forward, until his chin is rested on his hands. He is acutely aware that the prone position leaves him vulnerable, but who can attack him? He's already been prepped for Packer's use. They've all seen him stumbling along all day, they all know that he's too weak to fight back. 

No one is watching. Everyone assumes he's got a guard already posted, and they're too stupid to think to double-check. 

His teeth clench on the exact bit of rope he knows is central to the knot. It's a simple handcuff, it's hardly complex, he has spent hours of the past few days thinking about how to get out of it. His teeth clench on the rope and he does not dare to breathe, does not allow anything but his jaw to move. He knows that he's prone on the ground, but no one ever expects Caleb to be half as sneaky as he is. They see him shirtless and collapsed in the dirt and never notice the rope on his wrists coming undone. Anyone who looks at him sees his shoulders moving and assumes that he's a crying coward; when he sits up they notice that his eyes are bloodshot, not that the simple handcuff knot is now a slip. Caleb's unassuming demeanor is half his battle prowess, has been from the beginning, and if they thought him cowed it's only because he's cleverer than he looks. 

It's only a two-inch-long tail, but he grasps it in his fists. Having the means to release his hands is game-changing. He no longer needs to wait for Packer to do it, and that changes the timeline of events considerably. 

 _Where are you where_ _are_ _you where are you_  he sings to Frumpkin. The drastic shift in his mood has his heart racing, there's a palpable rise in his temperature, but will there be enough? Will it be only a spark, easily ignored, and then harshly punished? He hasn't the energy for theatrics, for burning the camp to the ground as he longs too, but does he have even enough to escape? 

His familiar is not coming. Nott is not coming. Fjord, Molly, Beau, Jester, Yasha, none of them are coming. He has to do this by himself and he  _can,_  he knows he  _can,_  because this isn't even the worst thing he's had to do. Years from now, he will have nightmares of these past few days, but they will not send him screaming from his bed. He has managed so much worse on his own, but it's  _hard_  because he's started to lean on them and harder still because  _he_  left  _them_  and there's no one to blame for this mess but himself.  

Caleb holds the tail of his slipknot in his palm and takes a deep breath. Caleb Widogast, he thinks, the forest stranger, the wood guest. They've brought a monster into their midst and they don't even know it. 

It's power, if he can leverage it. 

"No rest for the wicked, eh," and it's a different raider, this one, of the mean variety. His grip on Caleb's arm is bruising as he yanks Caleb to standing so hard that the stake pops out of the ground. It trails behind him as he is led further into the clearing, nearer to the fire—he's right that Packer has noticed that the fire bothers him. 

He holds the tail to his slipknot in his palm. He is a monster and a menace and there is a trail of blood in his wake. He went under the water in a cold prison and survived. 

 _Where are you where_ _are_ _you where are you_  and this time he grins in Packer's face. The man bares one in return, the leathery skin of his face too-stretched and sun-worn and yellowed. 

"That's 'a spirit, there," Parker croons to him. Quick as a whip his hand darts out, twirls Caleb by one shoulder— 

 _W_ _here are you where_ _are_ _you where are you_  

Caleb looks around at their audience; some of them scared, some of them lewd. He lets his laugh leak out of his chest, lets himself drop to his knees. They are voyeurs and idiots and Packer only holds them together with his self-importance, with the fear he puts into them with these displays. 

 _Where are you where_ _are_ _you where are—_  

Caleb pulls the release on his slipknot as Packer's hand meets his lower back. Globules of light careen out of his palm, scatter around either side of Packer to spook back the crowd, and it  _works,_ they stumble backwards because some of them still bear shiny strips of burned flesh from the last time Caleb had magic in his veins, and now it's a modicum of power to be leveraged. Packer roars in equal parts surprise and fury, he lunges forward but meets only the ground as Caleb rolls out of the way. A streak of orange goes past him and there's the yowling hiss of a cat and a very human scream of pain, but he doesn't have time to  _see_  as he rises from all fours and  _sprints_  like his life depends on it. 

He's a forest stranger, a wood guest, and the very trees and underbrush seem to open before him. It is still dusk, still twilight, and he has no goggles to assist him, but he is a Widogast and the forest has always been his friend. He does not hear any hint of pursuit, but it will come. He cannot keep this pace for long, but that's a plan for Future Caleb. He has been walking behind a horse for hours and that's after days of starvation and dehydration and his head has gone entirely too murky for anything other than the next step—but he's free. 

This has not been the worst thing to ever happen to him, but it might be the most clever he's ever been.

When the blade meets his neck, it's a disappointment, but not for long. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah! Twisty wisty! Did Caleb really escape? If Frumpkin was there, does that mean the rest of the gang isn't far behind? Did any of it happen or was it all a hallucination Caleb made up in his head to deal with the trauma? Who knows!


	8. Two Paths in a Wood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shit's getting real, yall.

He has to wait for the general ruckus to die down before he can explain himself. He keeps the visions to himself—they're not really his to share—but gets to the jist of the matter: "I know where Caleb is." 

Jester spreads her map out in the bottom of the cart and he points: "This is us right now," and then trails a sweeping line through the little calligraphy trees, "This is their next camp," a jump over a main road into a chunk of land that butts against a river, "And this is their outpost. If they get to their outpost, we'll never be able to get him out. It has to be tomorrow, at dusk," because that's when the last vision happens, that's the moment of no return, but he keeps that bit of anxiety and rage for himself—it's not really their business. 

Frumpkin jumps onto his shoulder. Generally speaking, his allergies keep him from being too affectionate with the little creature, but the fae has been weird with Caleb gone—weirder than usual, that is. He slinks along Fjord's shoulder with a  _mrrp_ of interest, peers down at the map with eyes entirely too intelligent for a cat. 

He's been weird with Caleb gone. Hell, they've all been out of sorts. Though he already feels stuffy with allergies, he lets the cat stay. A gesture of good faith, as it were. 

"They still outnumber us," Molly says, "We'll need to go in quietly, get the upper hand." 

Yasha nods, leans her elbow on Molly's shoulder, the affection as easy to read as the worry on her face, "Then we make a distraction. Jester and Nott should get Caleb out. We can meet up later." 

"Oooh, yes," Jester says, turning to Nott, "We are extra, extra sneaky, you and I!" To Yasha she says, "And you are—not. I can give you the Traveler's Blessing!" Her hand does not move from Nott's shoulder, but her smile is real today and her violet eyes are merry in the moonlight. 

They've all been out of sorts. Not a one of them has rested well with Caleb missing. With the visions from his Patron running on loop through his mind  _what was what_ _is_ _what could be_ he won't be in any state of slumber anytime soon. The general morale is spiking though, he can feel the energy vibrating through them all. 

Beau takes Frumpkin off him, snuggles her face into the cat's belly until he twists away from her with a plaintive yowl and leaps to the ground. She spends a second reaching over the side of the cart for him, asks over her shoulder, "Alright, so how's that gonna work exactly?" It's another minute before she gives up on getting the cat to return, but they leave her to it. 

"We'll go in first," he says, traces the path they'll take, "Hit the camp at a couple different points," and his finger makes a circle to show the outline of where the raiders will be, "Jester and Nott'll slip in, grab Caleb, and go. Nott can send one of us a message when they're good, and we'll disengage. Meet up here," and he taps at where they'll have left their cart, hidden, and horses tied up nearby, "And get the hell outta dodge." 

It's not a perfect plan. It's not even a great one. But his patron gave him this information for a reason, and it's not a malicious one. He has to believe that, he has to believe that he won't be too late. 

They already have to pay for laying hands on Caleb. If they—and he can't even  _think_  it—but if they take his wonderful, loving wizard who gives freely of himself even as he complains about it, who slips them gold though he's never had any to spare, who lets Fjord wash his hair even though he can do it himself, if they take his beautiful partner and—and  _violate_  him? 

He and his Patron will drown the world twice over, or as near to it as he can get. 

"We're gambling on the horses and cart," Beau says, chewing her lip. "Not a lot we can do about it, I guess." 

She's better today, with a clear direction and a definite lead. The erratic edge has died down sometime between Fjord scaring the shit out of them and actually explaining himself. There's still a rawness there, a certain amount of  _don't fuck with me_  that he doesn't intend to, but she leans against the side of Molly not taken up by Yasha, and it's the longest he's ever seen them go without trading insults. The black paint that splits Yasha's lower lip and chin twitches in something that's still budding as Beau points on the map, "If Nott and Jester stay with the cart, I can carry Caleb out. If he's hurt," and the shudder that goes through her radiates out, ripples through all of them, "They won't waste time getting the horses hitched." 

"I wanna go," Nott says quietly, and she's been that way for a few days now, without the alcohol or her friend, "I wanna go to Caleb." 

Yasha looks between them, curiosity plain, because she knows them the least and wants to see how much weight Nott has to throw. She hasn't caught on as quickly as Molly did that there's no Gustav here, no one to give orders or that has a final say. 

Fjord reaches across the map, takes one of Nott's hands in his, carefully chooses the one without a bloody thumb, says, "I know," says, "If that's what you want, we'll do it," and it throws a wrench in his plans, but for Nott they'll manage, and not only because of what she means to Caleb. 

Nott looks back at the map and it's not hard to imagine that she's the cleverest of goblin-kind when she's the only one he knows. Her eyes are yellow slits, as bloodshot as anyone else's, and she squeezes Fjord's hand once before dropping it. "I wanna go to Caleb," and the way she looks at him promises murder, promises pain, "But I'll let you go instead. If you promise." 

He doesn't remember the last time anyone threatened him like that outside of a fight. There's more than a few roused chuckles as he pats her head: "I'll bring him back." 

Then they eat breakfast, account for their weapons and armor, and pack up the camp. It's as they're getting ready to go, to separate into their different groups, that Molly asks, "Where the hell's the cat gone?" 

And damn if the cat hasn't actually disappeared. 

"We don't have time to search," Yasha says, "He's a familiar. He'll find us or Caleb," and she's right, but it actually pains him to think of leaving Frumpkin behind. 

 _It's good to know he can't die_  and wasn't that one of his very first conversations with Caleb?  _I mean, I'd still save him if I could._  How many lies has he told, so far? 

"He will catch up," Jester says, and her smile is still real, and the dawn is just starting to break, "We have a long ways to go!" 

None of them has any more say than the other. They leave without further ado. 

(Jester does tell him in an aside, "Remember Fjord," and she's not smiling when she says it, she's gone thin lipped and angry, and maybe she's guessed at what else his Patron told him, or maybe her own diety has told her, or maybe it's just that they've all been out of sorts, but she's frowning and her voice is hard when she says, "Chunky salsa." 

How many promises has he broken, lately? This won't be one of them.) 

The real problem is that they're playing catch up, still. He and Beau and Molly and Yasha flow through the trees at a pace that might be unwise, considering that there's a fight waiting for them. They're playing catch up because the raiders were still ahead of them a solid few hours when they stopped last night—though starting out at dawn has almost certainly given them an edge—but there's a long ways to go yet. They find tracks but don't bother really following them. There's a solid destination in mind, a definitive lead, and they stop at midday for water and a quick break, and the energy that loops through all of them doesn't so much as waver. 

He has fucked up so completely that his partner has been taken. He has failed so utterly that some lumpy, leathery shit-for-brains has carved his mark out of Caleb's throat. It took him three days to even think to ask his Patron for help, and Caleb has paid the price. 

No more. They take the break at midday and then keep going. At dusk the raiders will make their camp. At dusk they'll strip Caleb and throw him to his hands and knees in front of a fire. At dusk it'll be too late and he'll almost certainly have lost his partner, his wizard, his wonderful and perfect and selfless man that saw a chance to save either himself or his friends and chose 

(It saved them, his choice. They were twenty minutes from death, the lot of them. 

It doesn't change his opinion that though Caleb made the only decision he could, and saved all their lives in the doing, he chose poorly.) 

"Getting' close," and his voice is a growl in the pit of his chest. All four of them are panting lightly, but it's more to keep from actually baying for blood. The energy between them reverberates in a loop: they've all been out of sorts and pissed off and snapping at each other. They have none of them dealt with Caleb's sacrifice well. "Ears open," he says, and he's not a leader, he hasn't got any more say than anyone, but Molly is three feet to his right and pulling a scimitar, one pointed ear twitching. 

There's noise in the distance. It's hard to tell exactly how far, the trees and the underbrush make every noise dampen, make every sound bounce and echo strangely. 

The sun is setting. They're here. They have only the one chance.  

Fjord takes point. He has no tracking skills, but he doesn't need any. There's cheering in the distance, a faint roaring of an expectant crowd, and he knows what they're jeering at. He's seen it in his dreams. The sun is setting, it's not yet the twilight hour of his vision, so he picks his way through the brush carefully. They have only the one chance: get in, get Caleb, get out. They cannot afford to give themselves away. 

There's noise in the distance. A low roar, and it's not cheering, it's something else. Something angry. 

All of them cock their heads, the energy that joins them together is a living thing; call it magic or call it mutual rage, it thrums through them like a struck animal. All of them are picking carefully through the brush and all of them are increasing their pace, drawing their weapons, readying for the impending storm. 

There's noise in the distance, and it's angry. There's a scream that peals over the roar, and it cuts him to the bone. 

Fjord has broken so many promises. But he'd told Caleb  _I will always come for you_  and bitten him until the shape of his teeth molded the human's thin skin, a forever mark, a claiming, and he'd done it on instinct and he had regretted not giving Caleb the choice—regardless that Caleb had always loved it, always wanted it—but he'd never once doubted the gut feeling that had drawn him the wizard in the first place. Mate, partner, spouse, there's a scream in the distance that's short and brutal and utterly unfamiliar but he cannot afford to take any chances. 

He'd left Caleb's side to defend their camp and lost him. There's no more room for error, not with these stakes. 

Fuck their surprise attack, he breaks into a sprint. He's spent most his life on ships, feet tangled in riggings and his legs braced against the waves, and even with that advantage the forest seems to open before him. Not once does he stumble, not once does he falter, and there's a roaring in his head that accompanies the vision of Caleb bleeding at the elbows and knees, Caleb staring into the middle distance to get away from his reality, Caleb gone pale and empty and utterly devoid of spark. 

There's noise in the distance that means danger, and he's not so far gone into his rage as to be unprepared. There's a crashing through the forest ahead of him, some raider or,  _fuck,_ if it's the  _leader_? Someone is running in their direction and no matter who they are, they're someone that's contributed to Caleb's misery. No matter who they are, they're someone that tried to kill him and his friends so they could steal their shit. No matter what rung of this fucking bandit ladder they occupy, they're still someone that has to die. His falchion is in his hand and when he veers around a massive oak, he raises it to the average height of a human throat and lets the emotion that's building in his chest pour out. 

He roars as the last rays of twilight fade under the tree canopy. He roars for himself and all the promises he made in earnest, with the best of intentions, only to be broken one after another. He roars for Caleb, who thought so lowly of himself that he was able to bargain his freedom away. He roars for all the vision that his patron showed him and to petrify that shitstain coming around the oak tree, so that he knows in the moment of death how colossally he has fucked up by coming between Fjord and Caleb. 

At the very last second he pulls back, thinking only  _hostage_ , thinking only  _information_ , and he is not so far gone into his rage as to be sloppy with his seablade: the blunted edge presses against the neck for only half a beat before Fjord looks at his captive. 

 _I will always come for you_ , he's said. 

There are words on his tongue, but he chokes on them. Caleb's throat is at the blunted side of his Falchion with grey-blue eyes that remind him of the crests of waves, that remind him of  _home_. 

"Fjord," he croaks, with a voice that's strained and stressed. 

The Falchion explodes in his hand; all particles of light that zip into the nether space the blade occupies. He hardly notices the others gathering as Caleb collapses into his arms. 

Caleb. His mate, his partner, his spouse. His wizard, his human, his friend. 

"What," he asks into Caleb's matted hair, "Did I tell you about that wantin' to die shit?" 

He gets the laugh he's aiming for, feels it start in Caleb's chest, and it's a physical blow to his gut how hysterical and haggard the man sounds. He smooths his fingers over Caleb's head, down his spine,  _I will always come for you_  and what a fucking joke, what an idiot to think that Caleb would sit around and play damsel in distress while Fjord chased his own tail. 

Caleb's hands are fisted in the leather straps of his armor, and if he notices that Fjord's hands tremble against the bare skin of his sides, his chest, his shoulders, he certainly doesn't comment. Caleb's knees knock together, Caleb leans his entire body weight into Fjord and tucks his face into his collarbone. 

There's a vision playing on a loop in his head. Fjord pulls back, just a bit, though it makes Caleb whimper. Fjord's fingers raise in fits and starts to the wonderfully pale column of Caleb's throat, this favored and most sacred part of his most favorite person. His thumb has passed over the mark there a thousand times, a hundred thousand, but today the callus of his thumb hovers a hair's breadth away of where his mark used to be. 

Caleb flinches. 

They carved it out. All at once he is rage incarnate, all at once he is an avenger, an animosity, he is every inch the animal he's accused of being. They have set steel to Caleb's flesh and  _carved out his claiming_ _mark_ _._  He and his patron will drown the world twice over before he's skimmed the surface of this storm, before he's satisfied.  

 _What was_  the Deep One had told him  _what is_  and what a fucking joke, what an idiot to think that he could race the clock and win,  _what could be._ There's a vision in his head that plays on a loop and—thank all the gods and his patron besides that it didn't come to that—he will kill every man who stood and watched as their leader threw Caleb's skin into the fire. 

"Beau," he says, hands braced against Caleb's shoulders, pulling away though it  _hurts_ him to do so, "Get him out." 

Beau is there, instantly, her goggles hiding her eyes. He doesn't need to see them to know that there's murder there. Beau and Caleb don't even really like each other as far as he knows, but she's never had people who gave a fuck about her beyond what she could do for them. Caleb is family in a way her parents never were, and he'd been taken. 

They're friends, he and Beau, and he trusts her with this as he cannot trust anyone else. Molly and Yasha are their own creatures with their own agendas and secrets. This is Beau's first family, and he trusts her with this as much as he trusts anyone but himself. He tries to communicate that in nothing but his gaze, cannot see if the message is received. 

"Fjord," Caleb says as Beau steps forward and slings one of his arms around her shoulder. 

"Get him out," he repeats, without looking at Caleb because it  _hurts_. There's a bit of crusted, frayed fabric where his  _skin_  should be, a fresh rivulet of blood where the wound has recently reopened, and he should never have marked him in the first place. It was on instinct, a baser, more primal side of him that he's spent his entire life stomping out. He had never been the animal they accuse him of until the moment that Caleb had the audacity to sit on his cock and say  _our paths beget divergence._ Fucking three syllable words with lips swollen and his ass stretched; Caleb had thrown his head back with a moan that'd speared through every layer of human he's built up against the orc, had said with eyes absolutely hooded with ulterior motives,  _I_ _was afraid_ you _wouldn't come back._  

 _"_ Fjord, please," Caleb says, and that's fine, he deserves that for all that he's fucked up. He'd put a mark on Caleb's neck without asking, without verifying, without really explaining, and look where it's got him. This wonderful, extraordinary man that gave himself up and got himself out because Fjord took three days to do anything usefull. 

 _An orc who can protect and provide for many wives_ , he'd said,  _is a mighty orc indeed_ , so what the fuck kind of half-breed is he that can't defend just one? 

"Molly," he says, and doesn't know the voice that comes out of him, "Yasha," and they flank him without question or comment. 

He has no more say than anyone. He is not a captain or a leader by any means. But Beau bodily carries Caleb back in the direction they'd come from, quietly shushing his retorts, and the circus pair flank him as one of their own as he approaches the raider camp. 

Frumpkin passes him with a  _mrrp_  of interest, eyes entirely too intelligent in the waxing moonlight, and normal cats are not able to so palpably radiate approval but this fae one does. The orange tabby slinks off into the trees with a twitch of his tail. 

It's a simple gesture, but Fjord's a sailor and they're a superstitious bunch. He takes the sign for what it is and follows the noise into the not-so-far-off distance. 

He didn't come for Caleb when his mate, his spouse, his partner needed him. It's another promise broken. But the one he made to Jester is on his mind as he steps into the raider camp. 

Somehow, he thinks it'll be much easier to keep. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See! The cliff hangers are worth it!! I'd write something else witty but I'm coming down with a flu and proofreading this took the last bit of energy out of me.  
> Please please please let me know of any typos or anything funky! I cannot possibly say how embarrassing it is to be rereading a piece weeks later and find something super jacked up. Also if anyone likes the direction this is going? It's literally got a life of its own at this point, I am merely a messenger!  
> Thank you guys for all the love, the good vibes you send are received and are appreciated beyond words. I want to just keyboard slam at all of you, but I figured that getting you a new chapter would be better.  
> As always, <3


	9. Chips and Dip

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> People come and people go. Some with fire and some only near it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> acccck, this feels very much like a filler chapter?  
> tw for very graphic violence!

"He's angry," Caleb sputters, "He's really, he's really upset with me," and he's not crying, he's  _not_ , but it's a close call. Nott whines a low, distressed note from his lap as he fiddles with the bandages on one of her hands—gone for three days give or take and she's already chewed one thumb all bloody—and uses the other to comb his hair out of his face.

Beau's leaned all the way over the side of the cart, probably perched on the wheel, so that she can hold Frumpkin while he kneads biscuits into Caleb's shoulder. One of the Monk's hands is on his back helping him sit up, and she has very kindly not pointed out the way his shoulders twist under her pressure from the effort of containing himself.

"I- I wanted to help, I didn't know what else to do-" and they're feeble excuses for a person that's not here.

"Caleb," Jester says at his other side, "This is already in need of a miracle," and she's got fingers on the crusted over scrap of fabric on his neck, trying to peel it back without starting it bleeding again, to dubious results, "Please please please DON'T move—ohhhh, Caleb," as he flinches more from her tone than from the pain of her actions.

"I just!" Breathe, Caleb, breathe, "It was so important to him and I let them cut it off of me. He wouldn't even  _look_  at me," and he's not crying, he's  _not_.

Beau's groan overlays Jester's repeated commands: be still, be quiet, think happy thoughts. The Monk's topknot is half undone, her eyeliner smeared seven ways to hell, "Caleb, I thought you and Fjord were  _working_  on your issues or whatever!" He cannot turn to look at her, on penalty of death from the cleric at his neck, so he doesn't respond as she snaps, "You didn't let  _dick_  happen, okay? He was mad that they  _hurt_ you, you dense idiot."

Mostly he's found that Beau is tough but fair and doesn't mince words or feelings. Still, his shoulders contort and his chest hiccups and her hand on his back rubbing circles does nothing to suppress the shudders that run through him. As soon as he's finished tying her bandages off, Nott has both hands awkwardly patting his face, "Caleb you mustn't, you mustn't do that again, do y'hear?" and Beau is still fussing, "Dude, are you serious? You think that Fjord could ever be mad at you?" and the skin of his throat is a ruin of pain as the scrap comes loose, Jester muttering, "Even the Traveler thinks this is ridiculous," and idly passes it to him.

There's a horrifying moment, looking at the dark red of it against his too-pale hand, the blood clots that cling to the once-white, where he thinks that he might vomit. It's only a moment, though, as Nott hisses at the sight, snatches it, and swallows it whole.

Everyone needs a goblin friend, he thinks, and a human and a Tiefling too, and it would all be very comforting if he didn't know, deep down in the core of himself, that they would cast him out on his ass if they understood what sort of monster he is.

The raider's runner never returned from town, from verifying his bounty, and that's the only miracle they're likely to get. Jester is muttering to herself, possibly in Infernal, probably about the mangled and infected mess of flesh she's faced with.

"Okay okay okay," she says, "I'm gonna do my best, alright? You're definitely probably not gonna feel anything," and he's not crying but he might if he has to bear this hideous mockery of the scar he once bore with pride, if he has to feel and see this horrible mark in place of his wonderful claiming.

Fjord had seen it and had sent him away, had not looked at him again. Had he guessed, in that moment? Had he seen past Caleb's carefully-concocted character at the savagery beneath? Caleb has done enough in his life, he's seen and done things that warrant more than a scar on his neck. The sort of life Caleb has lived is one not worth redemption. If there's any justice at all in the world, there'll be a reckoning for Caleb that wipes the memory of him from existence, and he's made his peace with that. He'll fight it because he's a coward, and he'll suffer the visions of the past as they come because he's earned that much, but Gods be damned, the look of rage on Fjord's face as his thumb hovered over where his mark should have been will join Caleb's array of nightmares and it's the one thing he knows he can't take.

"Caleb," Nott says, both of her hands on his face, Beau chiming in accordance, "Dude, breathe," and he's not crying, he's  _not_ , no matter that he wants to.

Jester's hands are on his, raising them to his neck, "Look, Caleb, look," and he can't—it's his  _neck,_ he can't  _see it_ —but he can feel the smooth skin now there where Jester's magic has stretched and twisted his skin back together, and  _now_  there's tears on his face.

Nott's hands are patting his face still as he leans forward over her, and she's warm and as familiar and Frumpkin against the bare skin of his chest, and he's gasping in breaths, his very gut railing against him as he tries not to think of Fjord's face in the moment that he'd called Beau to take him away.

 _Get him out_ , like Caleb is a child, and isn't that how he's acted? He hadn't had a plan, hadn't had any clue of what he'd do once he'd gotten Packer to take him and run. There'd been no forethought, just desperation.

 _What'd I tell you about that_ _wantin_ _' to die shit_ , and of course that's what Fjord thought had happened, of course Fjord saw this idiocy and thought that Caleb was reverting back to old habits. Seven hells, maybe he is. His elbows are scrapped, Packer had been a moment away from dropping trou and then-

And then—he can't think, he can't even imagine.

"Caleb," Jester says, low and urgent, "Caleb you have to breathe," and he's trying, can't she see that?

"Caleb," and that's Nott again, her ears twitching against him, "Caleb there's someone coming," and he can't look at Fjord right now, not when he's like this—

 _(You're just gesturing at all of you,_ and it's usually a memory that makes him smile, that reminds him of the worth Fjord saw in him when he couldn't see it himself, but now he wonders if he'd had the right of it all along. If Fjord's optimism hadn't blinded him to parts of Caleb- which is every part- that were unworthy of the sort of care Fjord has provided.)

"What the fuck are you doing here?"

Not Fjord, not Fjord, not Fjord.

"Hey buddy," and Beau is not at his shoulder, Frumpkin is on the floor of the cart in a hissing arch of angry feline, and Beau is somewhere up ahead "How about you shove the fuck off?"

When he looks, the man in front of them is pointing at him.

(The raider's runner never returned from town, from verifying his bounty, and it seems that Jester has managed in healing his neck and that the night could only allow for one miracle at a time.

He is so greedy to want both, but the gods have never listened to him; he's never belonged to them. He's a Widogast, and only the forest has ever shown him any mercy.)

"No," he whispers, because they'll cast him out on his ass, they will fucking take Nott from him and leave him to his fate, and he'd deserve it but he won't go without a fight, "Go, now, get out of here," and Nott is in front of him bodily, the tip of Jester's tail accidently flicks him more than once as she draws her handaxe at his side.

The raider is pale before them but has eyes only for Caleb. "Do you  _know_ what the fuck he is?" His voice is the rasp salt of a man that's been in a hurry, of a man who has not stopped for rest or relaxation in his travels, "Do you know what the fuck he's  _done_?"

 _Get him out_  Fjord had said, without even looking at him.

 _No! Stop! Please, don't do this_  and had he listened? Had he ever done anything to earn himself a little mercy?

Beau lowers into a fighting stance, and her hair is half in her face, there's makeup smeared across her temples, and she growls, "I don't know what the fuck you're talking about," and she'd be more threatening without those ridiculous goggles over her eyes, "But you can talk it out with my fists if you want." 

The raider doesn't spare a glance for her, and Caleb leans forward, raises his hands, says, "Please don't," because they cannot know the flavor of monster that he is, they cannot ever know.

"Don't you understand?" It's terrible, the sound of the raider's voice, his conviction, his fear, and it's all perfectly justified, "Don't you know who he is?" Caleb is leaning forward, Caleb raises his hands as if that will stop the words from flowing, "He's—" and he wishes it hadn't come to this, but he's a Widogast and there are no gods for him.

The first fireball strikes the man in the face, turns his accusations to ash. The second strikes his throat, eats through his vocal cords and cuts off his scream. The third strikes his chest, burns away his breath before it can begin.

It's like Trevor all over again as the man bursts into ash, as Beau and Nott and Jester yell out in alarm.

"Stop," he begs, but he doesn't know who he's begging, "Stop," and there are hands on him, hands that will drag him down into the flames, hands that will harm him if they have the chance, "Stop," and how many years has it been since this happened? How many years has this memory been in his head?

"Caleb," someone says, and he cannot answer, he cannot move, he'd been drained before and the fire is as familiar to him as Frumpkin, but that doesn't mean that he's not utterly past the point of prostration.

"Caleb," someone says, and it's Jester over him, it's Jester that has him by the shoulders, Nott and Beau to either side, "Caleb, you are so  _stupid_ ," and, well, that's fair.

"Dude, you didn't have to do that," Beau says, and if there's annoyance there it's at least tinged with worry, "We don't care. Don't you get it? We don't care what you did or who you are."

Nott's eyes are huge in her head, and everyone needs a goblin friend, he thinks. And a human. And a Tiefling, too. Everyone needs a goblin friend to pat his cheeks dry and say, "Caleb, you're family. You're clan."

 _You should have just left me_. He'd told Fjord that once, because he'd felt like a burden, because he'd felt like he'd deserved it.

"You're sure he's not upset with me?" He hates how small his voice is, how nervous he still sounds. There's visions in his head of flames and hands and voices, but he grounds himself in the concerned eyes of the fucking lunatics he's chosen, that have chosen him.

Maybe they would have hated him, if the raider had spoken. Had told them.

"Oh, Caleb," Beau sighs, her voice half fond, "Of course he isn't."

But maybe not.

* * *

 

"Ladies and gentlemen," Molly purrs the moment before they break the treeline.

Fjord is already growling, definitely not in the mood, and yet he can see from the corner of his other eye that Yasha's lips quirk into something close to a smile even as she draws her blade.

Molly continues, flourishing scimitars that glitter with ice, refracting light across the crowd of raiders they face from across a small clearing, "In a feat of daring and bravery—"

There's one man that Fjord recognizes. There's one man with shifty eyes, with yellowed skin, with teeth that are bared in a rotted smiled. There's one man with thin scratches across his face, scratches that ooze fresh blood and that bring a certain orange tabby to mind.

"For love! For duty! For honor—"

If there were ever a time for showmanship and bullshit, this is not it.

"Fjoooooord Tough," and Yasha's chuckle is dark and filled with promise as a raider rushes her. His head goes skittering across the ground in front of them as Molly angles his blades, focuses the firelight reflections directly onto the raid leader that's rising to meet them, "And his lovely assistants."

"Hell of an entry," the leader rasps, "For bounty hunters."

Bounty hunters. Is that what Caleb had told them? The lie he'd spun to keep them alive? His extends one hand, feels a tingle there that's like sea breeze on a fresh-shaven face, that's pins and needles and pricks in the palm of his hand as his falchion materializes.

It's a gift, he reminds himself. A gift from his Patron, along with his life. It's not for petty vengeance and vendettas.

"The fuck is your name," and it's not a question, because it doesn't really matter. He'd like to know the man's name before he carves him into pieces, but it isn't strictly necessary.

"Packer," one of the surrounding men says, "Let us—"

"Shaddup," Packer snarls in return, drawing his own blade and sizing Fjord up, a scant thirty feet between them. "He made me take him, you know. I got no quarrel with you. He feckin' put a spell over me, asked me to steal him from ya."

True, every word of it. But the way Packer says it, sneers it with all the propriety of a man that's due an ass whooping? Fjord doesn't care for that shit at all.

"Asked me for more than that too," and, oh, this man, this human little fuckwad has no idea what Caleb is to Fjord or he would have chosen his words more carefully. He struts closer like a rooster to slaughter, all the arrogance of a man not used to being told no, "A lot more, matter of fact, 'fore he turned tail and ran off. In the middle of rustling him back up." Watery eyes that mark a coward, that mark a thief and a liar, close enough that a single step would have them eye-to-chest in Fjord's favor, "Split the bounty with ya," Packer says, and Fjord will never forget the sound of his voice, the putrid stink of this man's breath, will never forget this moment, "Split more'en that, if you want."

It takes one swing of his blade, one flick of his wrist, to slash the man across his chest. Not a killing blow, not yet, but deep enough that Packer staggers.

"He  _asked_  for it!" He's incredulous, indignant, one hand pressing to the new wound, "Put a spell on me—I ain't did anything he didn't want!" 

Molly's still in his best showman's voice: "Ooh, and the villain takes a misstep!" Angles his swords to flash the raid leader's eyes, laughs something dark and hollow that runs in symphony with Fjord's rumbling growl.

"You've fucked up," Yasha says, not unkindly. There's the body of a raider in front of her, his head not four feet from Molly, but she's as serene as ever, "You have really, really fucked up now."

The flush starts deep in his chest, sets his face and neck aflame, and Fjord is acutely aware of every hair on his body, of every pore and nerve ending as his attention holds, rapt, on Packer's face as the man backs away and raises his sword. "Did he ask you," and he doesn’t know this voice, this is not a voice that he has ever had use of on the open sea, "To cut him open?" He takes a step forward, feels the rage thrumming through him, lets it.

Caleb hates hurting people.

 _I have harmed people_  the wizard has told him  _A long time ago_ and he'd looked so haunted about it, so disappointed in himself.  _I thought I was going to be something_  echoes between Fjord's ears as he takes his next step  _I don't, now._

He is everything to Fjord, everything everything everything, and Fjord had thought that he was on the right path to proving it. His spouse, his partner, his Caleb. This filthy fucker had laid hands on his human, on his wizard, and he's spent a lifetime building walls up against the orc half of himself but now his head throbs as  ** _kill_** and  ** _protect_**  and every other orc urge he's ever been taught, that he's ever railed against, screams at him and finds itself met with murderous intent.

"Did he ask you," and not one of them can meet his eye, not one of the other raiders steps forward to take his challenge, to defend their leader, "To cut my fuckin' mark outta his neck?" Another swipe that Packer dodges, that Fjord lets him dodge. "Or did you just decide that all on your own?"

Caleb hates hurting people, Caleb likes to look people in the eye if he has to kill them, but Caleb isn't here and this man would have thrown Caleb to the ground, would have had him naked and bloody and sunken into his own skull, this man would have rutted where Fjord has worshiped and he's  _seen it happen_  thanks to his Patron. That the vision didn't come true does nothing but whet his appetite for blood.

Packer's face goes slack with surprise, then angry. It clearly has never occurred to him that Caleb may have lied when he'd called the Mighty Nein bounty hunters, he'd clearly never thought to question the keenest mind Fjord has ever known, because he's clearly as stupid as he motherfucking looks.

"Beast fucker," Packer says, and sneers, "Knew he was a beast fucker, but this takes the cake. Must've got tired of you, eh?" and he's not so far away now, he's not giving any ground as Fjord's feet continue one in front of the other, "Must've needed a real man if he was so willing to throw himself at me."

Every orc instinct he has, every thought in his head, goes against everything that Caleb would want. There's a buzzing in his thoughts because he's better than this, he knows better than to rise to this sort of baiting, knows how sloppy anger can make a man.

"Must've needed a real man," Packer says, lifting his blade, "To take charge o' him."

Caleb is not some  _thing_  to be owned. Even with the mark of Fjord's teeth in his neck, he'd been his own man, free to do what he wished. Never once had Fjord wanted to leash him, curb him, hinder him in any way. Never once had he wanted anything but the best for Caleb, even if it led him from Fjord's side. Caleb would want him to fight Packer if he had to, would want him to do the deed as cleanly and painlessly as possible.

Ice skitters across Fjord's chest as he ducks low, takes the shape of his armor as he raises his armguard to parry Packer's sword—shoddy, scrubby steal, not worth the ache in his arm he'll wake with tomorrow—and cuts the man's other arm from his body.

His scream never reaches Fjord's ears. He sees the man's mouth stretch into it, sees the seawater from his eyes fall and mix in the mud with the brine from Fjord's blade, but all he hears is Caleb's hysterical laugh not ten minutes ago in the forest.

The other raiders are a blur of motion that he doesn't bother to track. Molly and Yasha flank him, and what raiders rush to their leader's aid meet their fates on those blades. The rest flee for their lives, whatever they're worth.

"I saw you," Fjord says, and doesn't care if Packer hears, "Got myself a Patron," and there are tentacles that drift through his mind, that curl and furl in delight, that bask in what he's done with the knowledge given to him, "Showed me exactly what you were gonna do tonight. Showed me where ya were," and his blade flicks up as Packer rallies himself, knocks the sword from Packer's remaining hand, doesn't bother to watch it fly off, "Showed me what ya wanted," and Packer is already on his knees, clutching the bleeding stump of his arm, but now he begins to crawl in the direction of his sword. 

Unnecessary. Fjord has absolutely no medical background, but he's slaughtered his fair share of animals. He knows how to slice a leg so that the tendon rolls up, takes the skin with it as it peels from the bone. Packer's screaming doesn't even begin to penetrate the buzzing in his head, because all he can hear is Caleb's voice saying  _you should have just left me_  all those months ago, saying  _I'm not the_ _man_ _I thought I'd be_. Well, hell. Far as Fjord can tell, none of them are.

Packer crawls on his hand and knees, crawls through the dirt.

He cut Fjord's mark out of Caleb's neck. He had wanted to throw Caleb to the ground and fuck him like an animal, like a toy, like an object to be owned.

 _Remember Fjord,_  Jester had told him only early today,  _chunky salsa._

"I am gonna turn you into mincemeat," he says, and who's voice is this that is velvet and violence? Molly to his right and Yasha to his left are slaying men without comment or complaint. A gift: to focus on this task, to mete out punishment. He is judge and jury and executioner, and the power of it beckons to every part of him he's never wanted. "I am gonna chop you into so many tiny pieces, the worms will crawl right over you," and a blast of eldritch energy shoots out of him, shatters the sword Packer is reaching for, sets off new screaming as the resulting shards of steel pepper his face, "You are gonna wish you were never born, boy. You are gonna regret touching my," My what? My wizard? My spouse? My Caleb? He'd marked the other man without explaining, without asking, and look where it's gotten them, but his blood is lightning in his veins and his voice is everything dark and dusk and desolate as the Deep One, "When you touched him, your shitstain of a fate was sealed," and all it takes is a casual flick of his wrist to cut the tendon of the other leg so that Packer curls into a ball with his arms over his head.

There is no mercy in him for one such as this. For a man without honor, without a shred of common decency. Some of his raiders have met their ends of Molly's and Yasha's blades, but most have outright fled and that says enough about their leader.

Caleb had been ready to go back to prison, which he'd only ever barely escaped, for the Mighty Nein. He'd tricked Packer into taking him so that all of them could live. Not one of Packer's people is willing to do the same. Not one of his men is willing to take his place or intercede on his behalf. He stoops low, doesn't mind that Packer's blood is all over his boots, and his words are low enough that even Molly won't hear, "He'd have asked," just to let him know, just to be sure that Packer realizes the great, grand folly of this misadventure, "For me to spare you. After everything you did, and everything you woulda done. He'd have asked for that for you."

Packer looks into his face and spits. The gob of it hits Fjord between the brows, reeks with death and decay as it slides down his face. He doesn't flinch, just stares the writhing human in the eyes as he goes pales from blood loss.

 ** _Kill him_**  his orc half roars,  ** _he hurt what was ours, he burned our mark and made Caleb bleed. Kill him_**  and he has spent thirty godsdamn years building walls against this side of himself.

His falchion comes up and slits across Packer's neck. Fjord has absolutely no background in medicine, but he's slaughtered his fair share of animals. He knows how to cut just deep enough to silence, shallow enough not to kill. Packer's scream cuts off with a wet gurgle, and it won't be much longer until he drowns in his own blood.

"You are mighty unlucky," Fjord says, "That he's not here to beg on your behalf."

Molly and Yasha stand guard, flanking him and protecting him against the few raiders willing to fight for Packer's life. They're circus folk with their own secrets and agendas, but they've been murderous since Caleb was taken.

Carnival folk protect their family—isn't that one of the first things Molly taught them? Weird folk have to stick together, have to do what they must.

If anyone judges Fjord for how long it takes him to carve Packer into pieces, for how much of it he lets the human live through, they don't make their thoughts known. At the end, when he's covered in blood and flecks of gore and the rage has mostly gone out of him, Yasha thumps his back, says only, "Jester will be pleased."

Molly, red eyes glittering in the fire light, laughs and speaks a few words of Infernal that bounce off Fjord without affect. Repeats himself in common, "You're a good cook, Fjord," and his tail twitches as he surveys the corpses around them, as he eyes the puddled smear of limbs at Fjord's feet, "Given the right ingredients."

Caleb wouldn't have wanted this. He moves without a word back in the direction they'd come from, feeling lighter, thinking  _at least something as gone right_. The circus pair fall into step on either side, and they're calmer too, a jagged edge between the three of them soothed into submission.

Caleb would be appalled to know what they've done. Would ache to know how much they've bonded over the systematic murder of every person involved in Caleb's capture.

 _I will always come for you_  he'd said, and maybe he wasn't able to hold up to that promise. He'd put a claiming mark in Caleb's neck that should have meant safety, should have meant protection, and he hadn't been able to hold up his side of the arrangement. 

He won't make the same mistakes twice. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I needed to get this out of the way to move on to the emotional angst between Fjord and Caleb! Sorry if this wasn't what anyone was expecting!


	10. Closer to Closure

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is!! Explicit!! If you're not here for the dick, you gotta go!!

When he wakes, he thinks they've caught him again. 

For a microsecond, for just a moment, there's a weight at his back and his legs are pinned down and something is caught round his waist, and he thinks that his rescue was dream, was a fantasy, was a conjuring. He doesn't dare to move, the breath in his lungs seizes,  _they've caught him again_ , and he can't think past the panic of it, and there's the creak of a chair from across the room because someone has noticed him, and— 

"Caleb?" And the relief that runs through him is tangible, it takes all the tension in a ripple from head to toe. "I know you're awake," and awareness floods him. 

Yasha's back is pressed against his. He knows because her black-and-white hair is tickling his ear. Beau must be pressed against the wall facing her, because one of the Monk's tanned hands is resting on his shoulder, slung over the barbarian to get to him. Molly's horns press into his chin, the Tiefling's arms around his waist as he cuddles into Caleb, all warmth and silk and easy affection. He has only to lift his head a bit to see that the weight on his legs are actually the weights on his legs: Nott and Jester curled on top of and between his knees, a cluster and an anchor. Fjord is sitting at the room's desk, facing the bed with his arms crossed; the very picture of watchfulness. 

"Get some rest," Fjord says, and his molten eyes flick to the door. There's no silver thread glinting in the moonlight, nothing to pull Caleb from sleep. "I'm keeping watch. It's safe," and those eyes, gilded golden and gleaming focus on him with a quiet ferocity, "you're safe now." 

He thinks of Beau and Jester and Nott crowded around him,  _he was mad_ _that they hurt you_ , and lets his gaze wander down Fjord's body. Unharmed, not a scratch on him. "Did you-" but Fjord knows him best, is already answering, "He won't bother you again, darlin'." 

Fjord's watching him as much as he's watching Fjord. Fjord shifts, kicks his legs out in front of himself, crosses his ankles, and it could be a relaxed pose except that every inch of him is tense and taut. Fjord's eyes dip to Caleb's shoulder where there's no mark, slide down the rest of him, Fjord says, "Looks like Jester was able to heal ya up just fine," wanders back up to meet Caleb's gaze, "You wanna eat now, or wait til later?" There's a sense of energy to him, inertia, to every clenched muscle and Caleb wishes not for the first time that he could have Fjord's Dark Vision. If there were any more light than just the moon, he's sure he could decipher the emotions guttering in Fjord's eyes, he's sure he could read the shades of green in Fjord's face. 

"Um," he says, because he's still tired, he's worn thin with exhaustion, "Later, I think." It's hard to keep his eyes open surrounded by the warmth of his friends, "Are you coming to bed?" 

Fjord looks away, back to the door, and his voice is very soft, all soothe and salve, "I'm keeping watch," safety in the repetition; he knows Fjord's games, "it's safe, you're safe now." 

He doesn't want to wake the others but he can't stop the sigh that rushes out of him as he lays back down, one hand coming up to link fingers with Beau's on his shoulder, the other carding through Molly's hair. 

The darkness that finds him is watchful and waiting, is the darkness of peace. There are no nightmares for him tonight. 

Caleb sleeps. 

* * *

 

 

The second time he wakes it's to the sound of the door slipping closed. There's nothing at his back, a pillow slipped between his arms that he's clutching, his legs twisted in the blankets. 

"Caleb?" Fjord says, and the bed dips a bit with his weight, "I've got breakfast, sweetheart." 

He opens his eyes to find Fjord bracketed by sunlight, the forest-and-holly greens of his face backlit into a verdant splendor. He holds a plate in one hand, the other is halfway to Caleb's shoulder, hesitating from making actual contact. 

Caleb eases up, lets the headboard take his weight. Reaches for the offered plate of eggs and bacon. Does not comment on Fjord's recoiling hand. Stares at his meal as he chews, mulling over all the things that he needs to say. 

"You aren't—" and how he can say this? "Beau said," better, shifts the misunderstanding off of him, if there's to be any, "That you aren't angry with me?" 

Fjord leans back, scrutinizes him. The bare patch of skin on Caleb's neck is what turns his gaze toward the door. A flash of pink as his tongue wets his lips, touches at the scar that quirks the press of his mouth. "Darlin'," he starts, then sighs, turns his head as if forced and meets Caleb's stare, "Caleb." 

There's finality there. Fondness, too. He does not dare turn away, sets the plate on the bedside table without looking so that he can wring his hands in his lap without hindrance. 

"I'd understand," he says quietly, "If you were, I mean," because he would. Despite his friends' objections, Fjord has every right to be angry. 

Fjord scrubs across his face with one hand, sighs again, "I was at first," and it drops like a leaden weight into Caleb's gut. "Or I thought I was." The same hand reaches out, presses against Caleb's knee, "Caleb honey," and Fjord's voice is  _wrecked_  as he says, "I was  _scared_  shitless for you. But it saved my life, all our lives." There's fondness glimmering in Fjord's eyes as his hand moves from Caleb's knee to Caleb's hands, covers them, "How can I be mad at you for that?" 

Well, and that's a question worth answering. He'd done something stupid—unutterably, asininely, ridiculously  _stupid_ , but it had been their only chance. He could have disappeared into the woods and left them to their fates. His intentions had been noble, at least, and the plan had been good considering the circumstances. 

Just a poor follow-through. 

"Fjord," he croaks around the lump in his throat, and Fjord is instantly there, solid and steady as Caleb leans into his embrace and tucks his face into Fjord's neck, "I'm sorry," he rasps, choking on every syllable, "He, I let him, I couldn't stop him but—" 

"Sweetheart," Fjord rumbles, and that's his favorite tone in Fjord's repertoire, all repose and reassurance, his accent dripping into all the empty spaces of Caleb's heart "Honey what are you trying to say?" 

"My mark," Caleb says, "He cut it out of me, I couldn't stop him, I'm—" and what a coward that he can't look Fjord in the eye for this, that he wraps his arms around Fjord's torso and clings for dear life, "I'm  _sorry_. And I understand, if you're angry," he sounds pathetic to his own ears, every bit of misery leaking through, "If you're angry with me." 

As much as he clings to Fjord, the man clutches him twice as hard. "Caleb, what would make you think that? Fuck, darlin'," and his hands are smoothing down Caleb's shoulders and back and hips to pull him bodily into Fjord's lap, "If anyone should be pissed off, it's you. I fucked up, I can't even say how much I fucked up letting them take you." 

He tries to pull away but Fjord's grip on him is unrelenting, unyielding, "I let them take you and it took me two fucking days to even figure out where you were," and there's a tremble to Fjord's hands on his shoulders, there's a shudder to the voice muffled in his hair, "Caleb you were runnin' through the godsdamn forest by the time I found you, I couldn't even—you had to  _save yourself_ , fuck, honey, I'm so sorry." 

"Fjord," and the lump in his throat is swollen, is suffocating, "Fjord, it's  _my fault_ ," and Fjord isn't having any of it, he can feel Fjord's head shake somewhere above his, "I told you I'd come for you," and Caleb presses against him, "You did, you did, you were there exactly when I needed you," and then they're talking over each other, 

"I was so afraid for you, I thought I'd never see you again—" 

"I didn't want you to come, I thought they'd finish you off—" 

"I promised to protect you—" 

"I promised not to do anything stupid—" 

And Fjord is laughing, they're both laughing, Fjord is tipping his chin up so they can meet, both of them misted and muddled, and Fjord's fangs flash as he rests his forehead against Caleb's, says, "That you did. First thing tomorrow we're gonna come up with an escape plan, a disengagement. Address this shit right off the bat."  

Caleb's smile is, admittedly, more than a bit watery, "I just," and he bites his lip, "I can't say how much it means, that you came. I knew you would, but-" 

"It's different," Fjord agrees, "Someone makin' a promise and someone followin' through. Caleb I am always gonna come for you," and the fucked up thing is that he  _believes_ it, "hell or high water and everything in between, I told you we would figure out a way make this work." 

There's so much that he needs to  _explain_. Caleb turned a man to ash not fourteen hours ago for trying to spill his secrets, because there's some things that he has to explain on his own. Forehead to forehead, arms braced around Fjord's shoulders, he says, "I love you," because it's true and because it's the most important part. 

Fjord knows him best, knows that what he hasn't said is as crucial, cups his face in one hand and says, "Sweetheart, you don't ever have to tell me," because Beau is his friend and probably told him what'd happened as soon as Fjord had reappeared to find his wizard passed out and a pile of burnt armor at the foot of the cart, "if you need to, if you gotta get it off your chest, I'll listen." Because Fjord has his own secrets, Fjord knows better than most that talking isn't always cathartic, "But you don't owe that shit to anyone. Either way the wind blows, I am gonna love you through it." 

"Who even talks like that?" Caleb asks, shakes his head and softly laughs, lets the tears in his eyes fall, "No one talks like you do," and he sets his mouth to Fjord's. 

 _I'm a deserter_  he'd told Packer, because it was convenient, because it was the first thing on the tip of his tongue, because it was a relief to say it out loud.  _Monster_ , voices echo through his head,  _menace_ , and they're true too. He has ripped through men and women and children like wet toilet paper, he has watched as men burned in the fire of his fury. He has hurt people, and he cannot take that back. 

Fjord's lips open to his, tongue brushing the roof of Caleb's mouth, and he smiles into the kiss because maybe he doesn't have to redeem himself. Maybe he can just admit that he's a man trying to be better than what he's done. One of Fjord's hands runs down the bare skin of his chest, tweaks a nipple until it pebbles between his fingers, until Caleb gives a breathless moan, and maybe this can be his life. Maybe he can carry the rest as a lesson rather than a burden. 

"When I marked you," and he can feel the shape of every syllable, as Fjord lifts him and moves them onto the bed, shifts them so that Caleb is atop him, "It was a promise as much as a pact." His hand moves to Caleb's neglected nipple, pinches and pulls until Caleb is writhing, braces him with his other hand so that there's some distance between them, and _oh_ now that the room is filled with sunlight he can decipher the exact shade of gold to the half-orc's eyes, knows the exact emotions flickering there. "I would like-" and there's that flash of pink, that easy tell, the tongue-to-scar of Fjord's nervousness, "That is, if you were amenable to the notion," and every ember in him roars to life. 

" _Ja_ ," he says, " _Bitte_ _,_ please, Fjord," and to say that delight, pure and unfettered, rips through him? The last few days are but a blip in the vastness of his memory, they were horrifying and haunting but ultimately just embellishment on the backdrop of his life. The victim of a cruel man is a role Caleb's played before—Packer will be another face in a long line of people that keep Caleb up at night. If anything, it increases the joy of this moment; the horror and darkness of the past few days bring the light and laughter into sharp contrast, all the better for it. 

He's survived, against the odds. He's due some reward. 

"Fjord," he groans, one hand flat against the muscles of Fjord's abdomen, the other rising to push back his hair from his neck, to bare it for Fjord's hungry gaze, "I am—" but what is he?  

 _Not much_  if he were being honest. All he has to his name are the clothes on his back and the things the Mighty Nein have scavenged together. He is a forest stranger, a wood guest, and he comes to this wonderful half-orc with hands as empty as his heart, begging for both to be filled.  _Not much_  because he is what he is, he's done what he's done, and he has no idea what worth Fjord sees in it that his cock can stir against Caleb's thighs, that his chest can rumble under Caleb's hand. 

"I am yours," he says, because it's true and it's the most important part. The rest can keep for later. 

Fjord's fingers slide to the top of Caleb's pants, then to his own belt. Sailor's fingers, Fjord has taught him knots in his free time, makes deft work of this simple challenge. Caleb rises, lets his trousers puddle as Fjord peels his own shirt off and tosses it across the room. His cock springs free, bounces once against his stomach, already hard and flushed. He watches Fjord's adam's apple bob as his eyes narrow on Caleb's hand; he lets it trail from his neck, circle one dusky nipple, presses down the long and lean lines of his belly until he wraps thumb and forefinger around the base of his own dick, repeats, "I am yours," as his hand moves in a slow pump of his own shaft. 

Fjord rises to his elbows, bottom lip between his teeth, gently rolling his hips. They're thinking of the same moment as they lock yellow-and-blue.  

"When I marked you," and there goes the bob of his throat, and the hand Caleb has on his cock pushes down so that he can pull Fjord's from the fly of his pants. Fjord's cock is the exact shade of his cheekbones, the exact green that floods his chest when Caleb lets his eyes go hooded. He's already hard, but he's harder against Caleb's cock as he aligns them both in his hand. 

 _I was afraid_ you _wouldn't return_. 

He'd made Fjord do it. He'd known exactly what buttons to push, what instincts to stir. Maybe not coercion, exactly, when Fjord had more than wanted it too. How many months has it hung over his head that although he'd gotten exactly what he'd wanted, he'd had to plan and plot it? He'd been so clever and it had  _worked_ but Fjord would have done it willingly if Caleb had just  _asked_ , had just  _trusted_  him.  

"Fjord," he says, because it's true. Because it's the most important part, "I am yours,  _Süßer_ _,_ with or without it," realizes the depth of it as he says it: he is beyond needing proof of Fjord's intentions. 

The forest had opened before him because it's where he comes from. His people are forest strangers, wood guests. He'd been sprinting blindly, letting his feet follow the path opening with every step, and it had led him straight to Fjord.  _I will always come for you_  and Caleb had gotten him to say it with his cleverness and his coercing and his mouth around Fjord's cock. He had not known if he could bind them together any other way. 

Fjord had kept his promise. That's enough for him to know. To trust. 

"With or without it," he says, hand sliding along both of them, thumbing the twin trails of cum at the tips, "But I would be—" Elated? Delighted? Honored? There are no words for this, not in Common nor Zemnian, but he has to try, "If you would let me bear your mark." 

Something passes over Fjord's face that's dark and primal and urgent. His hand knocks into the bedside table, almost topples it and the plate atop it, finds instead the bottle in the top drawer. Caleb takes it from him without comment; sometimes speaking isn't cathartic, and in the light of day without his vision hindered he can translate the exact shades of the flush in Fjord's face, in the cadence of his heaving chest. 

He lets the oil drip over his hand, tosses the bottle to the side when he's done. The friction as their cocks slide against each other is delicious, but he can think of something better. Fjord is still on his elbows, rapt and ravenous, as Caleb raises to his knees and positions himself. 

"I am," and he's panting now, too, far from composure, caught and captivated by the raw urgency in Fjord's gaze, " _Yours_ ," he breathes as he sinks down. 

The stretch of it is overwhelming, even with the lube. Fjord is only half human, manners to the contrary, and his dick bespeaks the other half of his heritage. There's a defined ridge of the head that Caleb can feel as it slides against the rim of his ass. The thick vein of the shaft throbs against him as he lowers himself, impales himself, gives himself over to every inch Fjord has to offer. When he's seated fully, Fjord's ballsack against the backs of his thighs, hands braced on Fjord's hips for balance, when every inch of him is aflame from the inside-out, he says " _I_ _ch_ _liebe_ _dich_ ," and then, licking his lips and rolling his hips, translates because there can be absolutely no misunderstanding, he cannot make the same mistake twice, "I love you." 

For all that he is filled with fire, Fjord is covered in a light sheen of sweat. The effort to not flip Caleb over must be monumental—he knows the instincts, the urges that his half-orc grapples with. The growl that snakes out of Fjord's throat is low and dark and deep as the sea, it sends seismic tremors up Caleb's spine as he leans forward, clenching his knees so that he does not lose an inch of the length inside of him, and Fjord doesn't dare move as Caleb's hand press against the headboard and his lips trace the shell of Fjord's ear. 

It's slow. One meal doesn't fix three days of starving, of stumbling behind a horse, of being hogtied for hours. One good night's rest doesn't have him back in fighting trim. His cock is leaking all over Fjord's belly and there are no more words between them, there's no words for this. Fjord's hands brace on his hips as they roll, meeting him thrust for thrust, and it's not the wild abandon of their usual couplings. It's not the hard and fast and  _loud_  that they're known for. 

He could have died, and Fjord would have known that Caleb loves him, there's never been a question of that. He could have died, and Caleb would have gone easy to his rest knowing that somewhere Fjord was trying to get to him. 

That he's alive? This is the gift, the real magic; the fire in him and the patron in Fjord have absolutely nothing to do with the  _building_  in Caleb's core. 

It's slow and it's sweet and it's unhurried. Fjord cups his cheek, bring him in close for a kiss as his knees raise to press Caleb closer closer closer; there can be absolutely no space between them. If Caleb could merge them, meld them, make them one he would, but he settles for the way that Fjord kisses from one corner of his mouth to the other and then down. 

"You're mine?" He asks, though the answer is plain. 

Caleb arches his back, closer closer closer, one hand still on the headboard and the other clutching the back of Fjord's head. The short-shorn texture there is mesmerizing, and the only answer he can give a long groan. Clenches the ring of muscles in his asshole on the upstroke, and he has no pact blade but his length is dripping just as endlessly, puddling on the planes of Fjord's abs. 

"You're mine?" Because it's true, and it's the most important part. This is the discussion they should have had the first time, this is the hitherto missing consent that Fjord had beat himself up about for weeks. His teeth graze Caleb's throat, the same side, exactly where his mark had been, and Caleb's hand at the back of Fjord's head spasms, presses him close enough that he can feel the smile on Fjord's lips. 

" _Ja_ ," he says. 

 _I'm not the man I thought I'd be_. He'd said that with wet hair, kneeling between Fjord's legs. It had been a long time since he'd let someone at his back like that. Since he'd been able to show that sort of vulnerability. 

 _I used to think I was going to be someone. Now I don't_. He's a monster in man's clothing. There's a trail of blood and betrayal behind him: he has not been a good man for most of his life, but he's trying. 

" _Bitte_ _,_ " he says, " _Eile_ , Fjord,  _eile_ ," because there's heat pooling in his core that his nothing to do with magic, that has everything to do with the stars that pop into focus as Fjord's hand moves from his hip to his dick and palms some of the pearly fluid, uses it as a pseudo-oil so that his strokes are silky, salving, there's no hurry to him and that's what Caleb would call sinful if there were any gods for him. "I'm yours," he says, half a sob, "Please, hurry, I can't—" 

Fjord's lips ghost over his neck in a kiss, then he bites. 

He bucks into Fjord's fist, rhythm stuttering, and Fjord's grip on his cock goes tight, goes viselike as he uses each pump of his hand as an order,  _there_ _there_ _there_ _like that_ , because there aren't words for this, there's no description for how his vision whites out and all he can hear is his own moaning, his own building crescendo and this is not their hard-and-fast but this is their  _loud_  as Caleb begs Fjord and his patron and any god that's listening  _please_ _please_ _please_ _I can't_ as a trickle of wet and warmth goes down his neck, his balls tightening closer to his body, his fingers scrabbling for purchase against Fjord's head but there's no closer for them to be with Fjord's teeth already in his throat. 

"I can't," he pants, he chants, he begs, bucking into Fjord's fist, following Fjord's rhythm obediently, "Please let me come for you, my love, Fjord," because he's a moment away, he's on the cliff's edge and he's dying to freefall. 

There's red on Fjord's lips when he pulls back, and he licks his own blood away in a kiss that sloppy and desperate and punctuated with his own whimpering. 

"Sweetheart," Fjord says, and Fjord has taken the shipwreck that almost killed him and bottled in a voice—there are waves crashing in Fjord's tone as Caleb fucks himself onto Fjord's cock, into Fjord's fist, there are waves crashing and gullcry and a hint of the danger of the sea depths, "Darlin'," Fjord croons, his scar quirking his smile into something wicked, "Cum for me, Caleb," and he  _does_. 

The exact moment that he spurts in a long white line across Fjord's chest. The exact moment that his moan trills off-kilter, becomes a wail in any language, in every language. The exact moment that he tenses every tendon below the waist, sending Fjord into his own slew of profanities and prayers. 

That's the same moment that Fjord floods him; white-hot as anything he can conjure, as claiming as the fresh bite at his throat. 

It's the moment that feels most like home.  

* * *

 

"Got you this." 

Beau slips into the seat next to his, sets something on top of the page he's reading, learns nothing from the scowl he gives her other than how to mimic it. 

"What is it?" he asks, picking it up and flipping the book shut, carefully tucking it into a pocket of his coat, "I'm in the middle of something." 

From across the table, Molly gives an amused hum, says, "With all the fucking you and Fjord do, I'm shocked by the amount of smut you consume." 

Caleb stomps under the table, misses the Tiefling's tail, catches the glower sent in return and ignores it. Ignoring shit always works out for Beau, it seems. 

"If you would open it," the girl in question huffs, crossing her arms and looking away, "You'd know what it is, wouldn't you?" 

Jester and Nott are wrapped up in a card game—for buttons, not gold, as that's the only thing Nott has that they can afford to lose and that Jester won't keep—but the conversation seems interesting enough that they devote some spare attention to it. "Oooh," Jester croons, "Open it Caleb, I bet it is a party hat for your Welcome Back party!" 

"There is no such thing," he says, shoots her a glance that's all frown and narrowed eyes, because he wouldn't put it past her and because it's the third time so far this morning that he's had to quash such a notion. She sticks her tongue out at him, makes a movement like a wand flourish that would be a threat if her haversack weren't upstairs in her room.

"You should open it," Yasha says from the seat across Beau, "Before Nott does," and godsbedamned but his goblin friend has already somehow managed to apparate directly to his elbow, one hand slowly reaching for the box in front of him. 

She turns yellow eyes as wide as saucers on him, an unfair weapon, justifies herself with, "I just wanna see!" 

"I'm opening it!" he announces, throwing his hands up to the chorus of cheers he's met with. Fjord approaches with their plates, sets them down with nothing more than a wry smile at the goings on and gestures for Nott to make room between herself and Caleb, which she does by crawling atop the table. 

It's a plain box, no wrapping to speak of, so he plucks the lid off and reaches in with none of the pomp or showmanship that Molly cajoles him to use. 

"A scarf?" He turns to Beau for explanation, the length of blue and orange striped wool in his hands. Notices for the first time that her cheeks have bloomed a faint pink. 

"There's a spell on it," she says without looking at him, "A tracking spell. In case anything ever goes wrong again." She glances at him and blanches, stands abruptly, "Not that it, like, matters or whatever since you basically saved yourself anyway, but yeah, I gotta go right now immediately," and she does, Yasha rising to trail after her with a bemused smile. 

"Aw, Caleb, don't cry!" Jester says, abandoning her cards—but not before, he notes, she changes some between her hand and Nott's. "It's a very pretty scarf, much better than your old one!" Fjord flinches when the tip of her tail strikes his shoulder in her excitement, but he only wraps an arm around Caleb and lets him lean into the comfort. Jester rubs a soothing circle on his back as he takes a few deep breaths. 

From her perch on the table, Nott takes the scarf out of his hands, loops it around his neck, makes some adjustments in how it lies and the length of either end, nods and says, "There, that's just right," as though some considerable amount of thought has gone into it on her part. The best part about Nott is that he knows there was.

Molly is cackling with laughter, red eyes gone all squinty in his mirth, "I wonder where she even found something like that?" The gold bits in his horns twinkle as he leans across the table and fingers the fabric, "Very nice. Might have to see if they have anything a little more extravagant." 

Fjord kisses the bit exactly above the mark on Caleb's neck, comments, "Takes a load off my mind," and digs into his plate before Nott can steal his bacon. 

The others settle back into their mornings; eating, playing cards, going through their supplies and weapons. Caleb fingers the material of the scarf, looking for the magic in it, finds it in every stitch and thread. Even if it's ripped, even if it's soaked through or singed, they'll be able to find him if they want to.

These fucking lunatics, he thinks and he smiles. 

He's a Widogast. He's a wizard, an escaped convict, he's got secrets that haunt him at night. These fucking lunatics have taken him in as family, though. They'll always want to find him, and won't that be nice? For someone to come looking for him because they want him, because he's family, because they rest easier knowing that he's safe?

It's sweeter than any of Jester's donuts, at least. It's the most like home he's ever been.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's done! Man I'm good, I called it at 10 chapters from the very beginning!  
> I just wanna give a HUGE shoutout to everyone that left comments or kudos and reassured me that this was not the disaster that I thought it was. I didn't always respond- between studying for final exams and having the flu and generally being busy, I didn't always have time- but you guys hung around and supported me and are the reason this ended up being the Angst Train it is, haha. Yall are the real MVP's here.  
> When I started chapter one of this, I knew I wanted to write a fic where Caleb could be strong. Where he could show off his strength and totally smoke some dudes, but still have that tinge of Imposter Syndrome, that "I'm not good enough to be here." I wanted to show Fjord as being at odds with himself, too, as being caught between "Do I feel this way or is this an Orc-ish instinct that I need to repress?" because Travis plays him as very considerate, pretty mild mannered, but my perusal of the official 5e page for Orcs showed them as anything but, and I like seeing Monster Boys who aren't totally cool with being Monstery. I wanted to talk about his Patron, and I wanted to talk about Caleb's name, and I wanted to speculate on Caleb's history a bit without spoiling my WIP on Caleb's "checkered past with fire." I wanted some smut!! I wanted to use Frumpkin in a way that maybe caught people off guard, but didn't get the chance to really do more than kind of shadow (Caleb ordered him to "Keep them safe," and Frumpkin abandons the group to go to Caleb as soon as he knows where Caleb is AND they've said that they're going to go get him; he went to save Caleb so that the group wouldn't be in any danger, as his master ordered.) I wanted to see everyone else with Caleb! In the campaign there hasn't been a lot of time for each character to interact the way they want to, but I wanted to explore their relationships and how each of them expresses their love for their ragtag bunch of friends! I wanted a lot of things!  
> I hope that even some of it resonated with you guys as much as your comments and pm's have resonated with me. Special shout out to @DistractedKat who YELLED AT ME over my hints of Caleb's backstory, and @LoseBetter over on tumblr who also yelled at me for doubting myself.  
> Thanks for reading, I love you guys. See you on the next adventure!

**Author's Note:**

> I don't even know what this was, I just love drama??  
> Will the gang find Caleb? Before or after he's turned over as a deserter?? IS he a deserter or was it all lies???  
> Also called: I'm fascinated with the idea of using the Friends spell during combat and the mechanics of that, so I wrote this shitty angst.  
> Scream at me on tumblr at fenesvir.tumblr.com!


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